politics & violence · –includes: revolutions, civil war, riots, strikes, and peaceful...
TRANSCRIPT
POLITICS & VIOLENCE
F O R C E , R E S I S TA N C E ,
R E B E L L I O N , A N D T E R R O R .
A civilian flees from tear gas and gunfire during the October 2, 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City. More
than 1300 people were arrested, and approximately 300 to 400 people were killed. The Tlatelolco Massacre is
often understood as a part of la Guerra Sucia (“Dirty War”) in Mexico.
W H Y V I O L E N C E ?T H I S I S M O R E C O M P L I C AT E D T H A N W E
L I K E TO T H I N K .
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do
violence on their behalf.
George Orwell
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil
it does is permanent.
Mahatma Gandhi
Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the gun down.
Malcolm X
Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.
Susan Sontag
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the
truth.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY:
Term Working Definition
Violence
Force
Agency
• Are FORCE and VIOLENCE the same thing?
• Do FORCE andVIOLENCE require physical contact?
R E A S O N A N D V I O L E N C EW H Y U S E F O R C E ? W H E N I S V I O L E N C E
P O L I T I C A L ?
THE STATE AND VIOLENCE• Remember Weber?
– The state = legitimate monopoly on violence
• Individuals lose the freedom to use violence against each other and turn
that right over to the state in exchange for security (a protection
racket?)
• HOWEVER. State monopoly on violence isn’t perfect or
complete.
– Threat from external states
– Domestic, internal violence between individuals → murder,
assault, other violent crimes
• Usually manageable
• BUT if a state lacks autonomy and/or capacity → CAN weaken the state,
lead to its collapse
WHAT CONSTITUTES POLITICAL VIOLENCE?• Political violence = politically motivated violence outside
of state control
– Phenomenon which operates OUTSIDE of state sovereignty
• Not war or crime → working to achieve a political goal through use of force
• Broader category of “contentious politics?”
– Includes: revolutions, civil war, riots, strikes, AND peaceful protest
movements
WHAT MAKES PEOPLE USE VIOLENCE TO EXPRESS POLITICAL GOALS?
Institutional Explanations
Ideational Explanations
Individual Explanations
POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND INSTITUTIONS• Political, economic, societal institutions as ESSENTIAL to political
violence → structuralist argument
– E.g., capitalism drives violence, religion X drives violence, the state drives
violence
• Institutions could be the root of political violence because:
– Contains norms and values which encourage political violence →
certain electoral systems?
• Institutional readings of political violence tend to look for a single
root cause
– Implied presumption: altering the institutional structure would
eliminate violence
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good
thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms
in the physical.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1787
POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND IDEATION• Focuses more on rationale than fixed organizations and patterns
• Ideation = ideas and concepts
– May be institutionalized → political philosophy, religious belief
– May be uninstitutionalized → outside of organizational structure
• Ideas → worldview, diagnosis of problems, potential solutions, and path
to said solutions
• Political violence is more likely to be associated with political
attitudes which are radical or reactionary
– Driven by worldviews which view the current framework as corrupt and
beyond redemption, thus justifying the use of violence
Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and
inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is
less a distinct principle than a natural
consequence of the general principle of
democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of
the country.
Maximilien Robespierre, On the Principles of
Political Morality