Governing for positive peace: The role of public administration in addressing violence against children

This article examines the role of public administration in governing policies addressing violence against children from a positive peace perspective. Drawing on Jane Addams’ normative peace thinking and Johan Galtung’s distinction between negative and positive peace, it develops a peace-based typology of child policies, by forms of violence and policy orientation. This typology distinguishes between negative and positive peace-oriented policies and clarifies why policies addressing structural and cultural conditions that expose children to violence require a different administrative response. The article therefore argues for a child-centered, context-sensitive, and equitable approach to public administration rather than market-driven or purely technical models. It then translates Addams’s notion of lateral progress into four guiding principles that form a normative implementation framework: inclusive accessibility, transformative impact, participation, and social reform through co-production. The article contributes by using positive peace to reframe violence against children as a public administration concern and by advancing a child-centered understanding of administrative theory and practice.