2015. Political Violence (Co-authored with Stefan Malthaner) in The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements (Forthcoming) Edited by Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani (original) (raw)
Related papers
Political violence by non-state actors, whether in the form of clandestine groups, riots, violent insurgencies, or civil wars, often emerges in the context of social movements, can shift back to non-violent methods of contentious collective action, and in many cases does not mark a new and separate phase of contention but proceeds in parallel with street protests, marches, boycotts, and strikes. At the same time, different forms of political violence are interlinked and are part of a continuum of repertoires of actions-rather than representing discrete and mutually exclusive types-and often occur successively or simultaneously during processes of conflict escalation (when violence increases in scale, type, and scope) or de-escalation (when violence overall decreases).
Research on Social Movements and Political Violence
Qualitative Sociology, 2008
Attention to extreme forms of political violence in the social sciences has been episodic, and studies of different forms of political violence have followed different approaches, with “breakdown” theories mostly used for the analysis of right-wing radicalism, social movement theories sometimes adapted to research on left-wing radical groups, and area study specialists focusing on ethnic and religious forms. Some of the studies on extreme forms of political violence that have emerged within the social movement tradition have nevertheless been able to trace processes of conflict escalation through the detailed examination of historical cases. This article assesses some of the knowledge acquired in previous research approaching issues of political violence from the social movement perspective, as well as the challenges coming from new waves of debate on terrorist and counterterrorist action and discourses. In doing this, the article reviews contributions coming from research looking at violence as escalation of action repertoires within protest cycles; political opportunity and the state in escalation processes; resource mobilization and violent organizations; narratives of violence; and militant constructions of external reality.
Introduction to the Special Issue on Political Violence
Qualitative Sociology, 2008
The cover photo for this special issue on political violence depicts a peaceful street demonstration, perhaps the most studied tactic in the modern "repertoire of contention" (Tilly 1978, 1986, 1995a, b). The scene is non-violent, but as Julie Stewart explains in her article in this issue "A Measure of Justice: The Rabinal Human Rights Movement in Postwar Guatemala," the demonstration was staged in response to a 30-year-long campaign of state-sponsored political violence that took the lives of more than a thousand members of the Rabinal Mayan community in the 1980s. This peaceful demonstration is thus embedded in a complex, decades-long cycle of political violence. Political violence is a broad term for deeply contested actions, events, and situations that have political aims and involve some degree of physical force. The same events may be called by many other names: terrorism, insurgency, guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, self-defense, retribution, security policing, national defense, national liberation, statesponsored terrorism, or even genocide, depending on the circumstances and who is doing the naming. Using the neutral term "political violence" allows us to take a sociological approach that focuses on the socio-political sequences of action and contexts in which violence is embedded, and makes the naming of acts and the interpretation of their meaning an essential part of the analysis. The methodological tools of qualitative sociology are particularly well-suited to study of the unfolding of dynamic social processes and interactive meaning-making that occurs in messy, contested real-world contexts. The five articles we have selected for this special issue reflect the breadth of research that this approach invites. We begin with an essay by Donatella della Porta, "Research on Social Movements and Terrorism: Some Reflections" that provides an overview of the study of political violence by social scientists since the 1960s and helps to locate the other four articles in relation to
2014
Dynamics of Political Violence examines how violence emerges and develops from episodes of contentious politics. By considering a wide range of empirical cases, such as anarchist movements, ethno-nationalist and left-wing militancy in Europe, contemporary Islamist violence, and insurgencies in South Africa and Latin America, this pathbreaking volume of research identifies the forces that shape radicalization and violent escalation. It also contributes to the process-and-mechanism-based models of contentious politics that have been developing over the past decade in both sociology and political science. Chapters of original research emphasize how the processes of radicalization and violence are open-ended, interactive, and context dependent. They offer detailed empirical accounts as well as comprehensive and systematic analyses of the dynamics leading to violent episodes. Specifically, the chapters converge around four dynamic processes that are shown to be especially germane to radicalization and violence: dynamics of movement-state interaction; dynamics of intra-movement competition; dynamics of meaning formation and transformation; and dynamics of diffusion. Contents: A contentious politics approach to the explanation of radicalization, Lorenzo Bosi, Chares Demetriou and Stefan Malthaner. Part I Dynamics of Interaction between Oppositional Movements/Groups and the State: The mechanisms of emotion in violent protest, Hank Johnston; A typology of backfire mechanisms, Lasse Lindekilde; Processes of radicalization and de-radicalization in Western European prisons (1965-1986), Christian G. De Vito. Part II Competition and Conflict: Dynamics of Intra-Movement Interaction: Competitive escalation during protest cycles: comparing left-wing and religious conflicts, Donatella della Porta; Intra-movement competition and political outbidding as mechanisms of radicalization in Northern Ireland, 1968-1969, Gianluca De Fazio; The limits of radicalization: escalation and restraint in the South African liberation movement, Devashree Gupta. Part III Dynamics of Meaning Formation: Frames and Beyond: Contentious interactions, dynamics of interpretations, and radicalization: the Islamization of Palestinian nationalism, Eitan Y. Alimi and Hank Johnston; Radical or righteous? Using gender to shape public perceptions of political violence, Jocelyn Viterna; From national event to transnational injustice symbol: the three phases of the Muhammad cartoon controversy, Thomas Olesen. Part IV Dynamics of (Transnational) Diffusion: Radicalization from outside: the role of the anarchist diaspora in coordinating armed actions in Franco’s Spain, Eduardo Romanos; Protest diffusion and rising political violence in the Turkish ’68 movement: the Arab-Israeli war, ‘Paris May’ and the hot summer of 1968, Emin Alper; The evolution of the al-Qaeda-type terrorism: networks and beyond, Ekaterina Stepanova; Conclusion, Martha Crenshaw; Index.
This course addresses the broad phenomenon of political violence encompassing: processes of individual and collective radicalization, civil war dynamics, communal violence, armed movements' consolidation and rebel governance, and the role of the state in exacerbating or diminishing conflictual dynamics. Building on relationally informed social movement studies, it will discuss phenomena as distinct as the significance of mental illness in radicalisation, the role of friendship in mobilization, the IRA's urban mobilization, state violence and torture in Turkey and Tamil Tiger state building efforts in Sri Lanka and much more. It can be roughly divided into three overlapping focuses: a) Radicalization – relational dynamics which lead to a progression from non-violent activism to the endorsement and/or use of violence at the individual and collective levels. b) Armed conflict and Insurgent movement emergence and consolidation – under which structural conditions do groups turn to violence and how do they survive? c) Rebel Governance – the broader repertoire of insurgent contention, what importance should be attributed to the non-armed actions (service provision, revolutionary courts etc.) of insurgent groups The objective of this course is to obtain a general understanding of political violence, when it emerges and which forms it takes? At the end of the course students will have a strong familiarity with literature on violence from the areas of social movement studies, the field of terrorism and the literature on civil wars. The course will draw heavily on the conflicts on which I have most expertise; the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, in Ireland and in Colombia. It will however draw in historical and contemporary examples from across the globe. The research findings of a recent research consortium (PRIME) of which I was a member, on Lone Actor Extremism will also be featured. Students are strongly encouraged to apply the theoretical debates covered in the course to conflicts or case studies of their own interest that are not directly featured in the syllabus.
Transformations of Political Violence? A Research Program
TraCe Working Paper, 2022
This paper outlines a research program on the development of political violence. Political violence in its many formsfrom riotous protests to war between states-remains ever-present and has immense moral and political implications. However, the overall development of political violence remains poorly understood. Examining existing research, we identify three general positions: political violence has either declined, escalated, or taken different forms. However, due to diverging definitions and specifications as well as partially ambiguous evidence, no clear assessment has as yet been made. Hence, the paper provides a basic framework to better group existing approaches, examine available findings, and to enable the design of further research to better understand the development of political violence. Surveying the conceptual literature, we find narrower and broader definitions of political violence which, respectively, allow for more focused and for more wholistic investigations. We also distinguish three crucial aspects of political violence: its forms and patterns, the role of political institutions, and its social construction and justification. Surveying the literature on the state and transnational groups, we also propose a basic typology on the direction, basic entities, and forms of political violence. Jointly, these definitions, aspects and basic concepts form a general framework with which to break new ground on the development of political violence by affording connection and communication between various strands of research from diverse disciplinary perspectives.
[2018] Leftist Political Violence: From Terrorism to Social Protest
Terrorism in America, 2018
Loadenthal, Michael. “Leftist Political Violence: From Terrorism to Social Protest.” In Terrorism in America, edited by Kevin Borgeson and Robin Valeri, 36–74. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. --------------------- • Terrorism is a difficult to define label, and its application controlled by state authorities (e.g. Executive, courts, legislature, police, military). It is typically used to denote forms of political contestation that challenge the government in symbolic, rhetoric, and practical terms. Because of this patterned application, terrorism fails to adequately describe acts, and instead is a means of defaming a particular tactic, strategy, organization, ideology or individual. • The labeling of leftist violence and rightist violence is done irregularly with leftists frequently labeled and prosecuted as terrorists and rightists typically described and framed through other discourses such as extremism. • The first wave of global terrorism is often associated with the rise of individual anarchists targeting heads of state in the 19th century, and while this era saw kings and presidents slain by leftists, it promotion of propaganda of the deed declined by World War II. • The 1960s saw a landmark rise in networks and organizations of Marxist-Leninist and other leftists adopting violent means (e.g. bombing, armed robbery)—frequently labeled as terrorism—in their opposition to the War in Vietnam, national liberation (e.g. Puerto Rico), and the larger socio-political environment framed as US-led imperialism. • In the 1980s, when the Marxist-Leninist vanguards declined, they was replaced by a rising tide of clandestine animal liberation networks, and by the 1990s, the addition of environmental campaigns of sabotage, vandalism and arson—labeled by the government as “eco-terrorism.” Though these networks did not employ lethal means, due to the frequency of their attacks and their large financial cost, they were quickly cast as domestic terrorists and a premier target for further criminalization through the rhetoric of terrorism. • Around the millennium, the left engaged in a series of large-scale counter-summit street protests. Following the attacks of 9/11, these leftist tactics were further criminalized through a rhetorical association with terrorism, and thus a movement on the rise was quickly curtailed. • Following the discursive shift equating civil disobedience and disruptive protestors as “terrorists” occurring after 9/11, in the early months of 2017, legislative and policing practices have demonstrated a renewed desire to recast demonstrators as an existential danger to the state and national security—this time by framing “demonstrators” as “rioters” if property destruction occurs within the demonstration.
The Repertoire of Political Violence: Naming, Defining, and Classifying
Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity (pp. 161-196). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan., 2019
Bernasconi, O., López, L., & Ruiz, M. (2019). The Repertoire of Political Violence: Naming, Defining, and Classifying. In O. Bernasconi (Ed.), Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity (pp. 161-196). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Violent Transnational Social Movements and their Impact on Contemporary Social Conflict
Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare, 2019
This paper takes the perspective that violent transnational social movements (VTSMs) have profoundly impacted contemporary conflict scenarios. Social movements, underpinned by ideology, create partisan, transnational echo chambers, and communities, which are in the process of 'changing the weather' in contemporary social interactions. Transnational advocacy networks work in tandem to 'create the message' and perpetuate narratives. Where extremist dialogue crosses over into violence, we argue that a new form of conflict emerges. Such conflict does not have the preservation of the state as a territorially important factor or reference point, but rather, the preservation and promotion of a cultural identity. Where 'other' identities also co-exist, as in multicultural societies, these extremist views, and the crossover to violence from extremist rhetoric, arguably create a new type of warfare which we label fifth generation.
Political Violence in Context: Time, Space and Milieu (2015) will become an essential work for the study of both the emergence and decline of political violence within social movements. Editors Lorenzo Bosi, Niall Ó Dochartaigh, and Daniela Pisoiu offer a an inherently dialectical collection that exposes different structures for understanding violent developments within diverse temporal, spatial, and social contexts of myriad social movements. The work explores political violence in Northern Ireland, Italy, China, Japan, the United States, West Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The collection is at times frustratingly vague regarding the specific meanings the authors assign to questions of temporality, spatiality, and the radical milieu, but the editors can be applauded for engaging difficult and sometimes provocative analyses of how political violence emerges from both context and contention. Their scholarship follows on the work of Stathis Kalyvas’ The Logic of Violence in Civil War (2006) and the essays collected within Martha Crenshaw’s Terrorism in Context (1995).