DEVELOPMENT

2.9
Estonia’s peacefulness and security
in an unstable world
Marju Lauristin, Juhan Kivirähk
2.9.1
Components and country comparisons
of the Global Peace Index
The following factors were taken into consideration when
compiling the Global Peace Index: the militarism of the
countries, defensive capability, level of crime and violent
conflicts, access to weapons in the population and
the level of the country’s armament, risk of terrorism
and foreign aggression, participation in peacekeeping
missions, number of casualties in foreign conflicts. The
23 statistical indicators related to militarism, the risk of
conflict, and instability; which reflect the security of a
state, are recalculated into a 5-point scale and a general
score for the peace index is computed on a 5-point scale
based thereon. As background indicators, the Global
Peace Index report also includes all the most important
indicators for economic, human and democracy development,
which enable the security of each country to be
juxtaposed with its general level of development.
Based on the general Global Peace Index (GPI) score,
the countries under examination are divided into five quintiles.
In 2012, 158 countries were examined, slightly fewer
than in previous years. The top ten secure states include
the following: from Europe the Nordic countries, Austria,
Ireland, Switzerland and the post-Communist countries of
Slovenia and the Czech Republic; and Canada, New Zealand
and Japan of the non-European countries. The states
with the highest peace ratings in the index are also among
the best based on the indicators for democracy, human and
economic development, and they are relatively corruption
free. Based on the GPI, Estonia is in 41 st place; a sharp
What affects Estonia’s position in the
security ranking of the world states?
Positively:
lack of domestic violent
conflict;
lack of political terror;
participation in peacekeeping
missions;
training;
lack of illegal weapons export;
lack of refugees from country;
improving domestic security.
Negatively:
level of perceived criminality
in society;
number of violent deaths and
homicides;
number of prisoners;
demonstrations that have
become violent;
military capability;
large percentage of defence
expenditures per GDP, which
reflects a feeling of military
threat;
insecure relations with neighbouring
states.
decline occurred after 2007 (see Table 2.9.1). Estonia’s
41 st rank puts us in the second quintile, at the same level
with France and the South Korea. All the new EU Member
States, except for Latvia and Lithuania, placed ahead of
Estonia. Of the European Union Member States, Greece
is in the worst position. Russia is among the least secure
states in the world, along with Pakistan, India, North of
Korea, Israel and Iraq.
As we can see from the table, all reference states
selected for comparison in this report besides the South
Korea, and Estonia itself, are in the first quintile of the
peace index, whereas seven of them are in the top ten.
Of the background traits, the following are important:
the free flow of information, stable and functioning rule of
law, relatively successful fight against corruption, relatively
favourable business environment, and high education level.
Of the background traits, Estonia’s security has been
damaged the most by the following: its limited success
with integration, which is interpreted as a risk of ethnic
conflict; tense relations with Russia; and the limited
cohesion of the society, which is expressed by inequitable
access to resources.
2.9.2
External security
The indicators that reflect external security comprise 40%
of the Global Peace Index. These include the following:
the state’s level of military spending; number of armed
services personnel per 100,000 inhabitants, the state’s
financial appropriations for participation in peacekeeping
missions; number of heavy weapons per 100,000
inhabitants; export of conventional weapons per 100,000
inhabitants; evaluation of the state’s military capability;
number of refugees and displaced persons as percentage
of population; assessment of the relations with neighbouring
states; participation in internal and external conflicts;
and the number of deaths due to external wars.
The Bonn International Centre for Conversion
(BICC) regularly compiles a Global Militarisation Index.
Based thereon, the world’s most militarised state is Israel,
and of the Baltic states, Estonia. Based on the data collected
by the BICC in 2011, in the Militarisation Index, is
positioned at 35 th place right after Iran (34 th place). One
of the fundamental indicators of this index is defence
spending as a percentage of GDP. For instance, according
to this index, Latvia places 94 th in the world and Lithuania
places 60 th , after Georgia. Based on defence spending,
Finland is the 27 th state in the world. The top ten are comprised
of Israel, Singapore, Syria, Russia, Jordan, Cyprus,
Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
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Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013