The foundation's stated mission was to counter the proliferation of entertainment violence as well as real-life violence, to promote democratic development, peaceful social conditions and human rights and to foster a global culture of peace. For these purposes opinion-making, information work and other appropriate activities should be carried out in Sweden as well as in other countries.
A long-standing goal of PQI is the establishment within national governments of dedicated peace departments. This idea has been with the peace movement througout the late modern period, originating in the early history of the USA.
A 1987 peace gala featured the assassinated prime minister Olof Palme's widow Lisbeth as speaker. A newspaper report about the event described Co-operation for Peace as serious although little known and somewhat naïve. This was the view of the better known and to this day dominant Swedish peace organization, the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society.
The word “PeaceQuest” was first used in 1988 to describe a six-week study tour of the Soviet Union, Sweden and the United States. Fifty people from these countries took part in it. With time, more than five thousand young people in Sweden would take part in the different activities of PeaceQuest. In 1991 the organization was designated as Peace Messenger by the United Nations Secretary-General.
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Eventually, activity dwindled. Two different but related membership-based associations with similar names were closed down during the 2010s. This left the PeaceQuest International foundation as the only heir to the 1983 initiative.
In 2025, PQI is restoring its public presence. This happens as violence and the threat from nuclear weapons are being aggravated by war in Ukraine, by genocide and conflict in the Middle East and by U.S. apprehension over the rise of China.
Underpinning this is also an erosion of democracy in the part of the world that declares itself democratic. At this moment in history, quests for peace are no less needed than in 1983.
PeaceQuest started out at the height of the Cold War, in 1983, as Co-operation for Peace. Its stated purpose was “to promote understanding and compromise between people and nations globally”. An office in Stockholm staffed by people from Sweden, Poland, the United States and the Soviet Union disseminated a newsletter and organized meetings. At this time, the threat of nuclear war worried people all over Europe. Sweden saw incursions by foreign submarines.
A study trip to the Soviet Union spearheaded growing international as well as national activity, mostly involving young people. There were summer camps in Sweden, study weeks for high school students and a municipally sponsored peace centre – Western Europe’s largest. After the 1986 World Peace Congress in Copenhagen there were also growing contacts with India.
"The world is so small", artist Arja Saijonmaa was qouted by the press after having performed at one of the organization's events. "We can't afford to think in a nationally selfish way."
The post-Cold War era saw offices open in Washington DC and Riga and fraternal organizations forming in Yekaterinburg, Berlin and New Delhi. Projects sponsored by the Swedish government agency SIDA were carried out with schools in Karnataka in southern India as well as in Zambia and Chile. PeaceQuest representatives were present at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro UN conference and so the environment, along with democracy, became new focal areas. The scope of the organization’s activities grew to include Belarus, Palestine and Israel. This was all very much in tune with the "culture of peace" concept adopted by UNESCO at the time.
The present logotype was introduced, symbolizing inclusiveness with an image of stars surrounding the planet that is humanity’s common home.
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