V. Looking beyond 2015: developing new data and a global system of security accounts

Chapter:

Introduction

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2013

Author(s):

Tilman Brück

The above discussion of selected recent trends in security, conflict and peace research assumes throughout that some aspects of these topics can be measured in a meaningful way (i.e. policy and operationally relevant). If so many other issues in an individual's life or in society can be measured, it should be possible to develop metrics for peace and security, at both the individual and the aggregate, national levels. One such example would enumerate the experience of conflict at the individual level, as argued above.³⁸ Another such example at the national level is the pioneering Global Peace Index.³⁹ However, neither measuring perceptions of insecurity, counting the war dead, tallying incidents of weapon smuggling, developing proxies for peace nor estimating a security indicator is good enough in itself. Despite these and many other developments referenced in the SIPRI Yearbook over the years, at least two important challenges remain.