The indicatorsTwenty-four indicators of the existence or absence of peace were chosen by the panel, which are divided into three key thematic categories. Many of the indicators have been "banded" on a scale of 1-5; qualitative indicators in the index have been scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit's extensive team of country analysts, and gaps in the quantitative data have been filled by estimates. Indicators of quantitative data such as military expenditure or jailed population have been normalised on the basis of:
x = (x-Min(x)) / (Max (x) - Min (x))
Where Min (x) and Max (x) are respectively the lowest and highest values in the 140 countries for any given indicator. The normalised value is then transformed from a 0-1 value to a 1-5 score to make it comparable with the other indicators. Measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict...
Jailed members of a society are considered to be 'internal conflict.' Think about it. Laws are created to govern domestic peace and tranquility, when the laws create criminals of their populous due to strife and/or culture, that clearly indicates the government has turned against the people. The USA has a large number of its population in prison under the current regime, as well as the international crimes they exhibit in regard to invasion and coveting of sovereign countries. Of those that remain 'out of jail' such as Tom DeLay, are they appropriately out of jail and how much of the populous have 'changed' behaviors adversely to primary belief systems to remain out of peril with its govenment?
In the case of a country such as the USA which states to practice democracy based in a capitalistic economy, how much of the behaviors of its 'businesses' both government and private have changed in order to survive a hostile regime in DC ? As a result what has happened to the middle class, labor force, unions and instruments of democracy that empowers upward economic movement through opportunity ?
