Analysis Of Political Violence Research Articles

An evaluation of factors pushing youth from Majengo, Mombasa Kenya into al-Shabaab: a methodological and theoretical analysis

ABSTRACT This study examines factors influencing youth from Majengo in Mombasa County in Kenya to join the Al-Shabaab violent extremist group. Drawing on empirical data and social movement theory, the study finds several contextual factors, including religious ideology, social media, and texts, as aiding the radicalisation process. The study findings are consistent with the existing literature in the sub-field of terrorism studies indicating the non-linearity of the radicalisation journey. The study is informed by insights from 30 in-depth qualitative interviews carried out between 2016 and 2019 in Mombasa with religious leaders, academic experts, community members and various government agencies. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used to collect qualitative data, which were analysed thematically. Secondary data was collected from books, academic journals, newspapers and grey literature. The study contributes to noted gaps in terrorism studies on the value of primary data in the analysis of political violence.

“Archipelagic Penal Spaces”: The Iraqi Muslim Woman and the Abject Female Soldier in Helen Benedict’s Sand Queen

The US war story is conventionally one of nation and of masculinity. Literary fiction and nonfiction by US women writers who address the war on terror and focus on women serving in the military have problematized this paradigm. Given the high number of women who joined the US military to serve in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, texts such as Love my Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army by Kayla Williams (2006), Flashes of War by Katey Schultz (2013), Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq by Jessica Goodell (2013), and Sand Queen by Helen Benedict (2011) highlight the challenges the US female soldier encounters not only on the battlefield, but also in being accepted by her male peers because she is a woman performing a masculine job. Benedict’s Sand Queen adds a twist to this still emerging literary tradition by portraying the sexually harassed US female soldier Kate Brady concurrent with the Iraqi viewpoint of the civilian, a Muslim woman named Naema al-Jubur. In this essay, I propose an archipelagic theoretical framework to examine the war on terror as it is portrayed from the perspective of the sexually harassed US female soldier and the civilian Iraqi woman, while paying close attention to the main setting of the story, Camp De Bucca. I examine the characters of Kate and Naema in light of Julia Kristeva’s feminist theory of the “abject” and Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of political violence, specifically his definition of the “sovereign sphere.”

Implications of Wedeen’sAmbiguities of Dominationfor the Analysis of Political Violence

Implications of Wedeen’s<i>Ambiguities of Domination</i>for the Analysis of Political Violence

La violencia política del liberalismo exaltado durante el Trienio Liberal. La defensa del régimen constitucional desde Barcelona

El presente trabajo analiza la violencia política ejercida por los liberales durante el Trienio Liberal y establece distintas categorías en el análisis de la misma. Se pretende también dirimir cuál fue la actitud de las autoridades frente a la violencia, y de qué modo se relacionó esta con la extensión del miedo al enemigo interior en la retaguardia liberal. El estudio valida la hipótesis de que la violencia política se incrementó en la medida en que las autoridades liberales se sintieron amenazadas por los enemigos interiores y exteriores. También contribuyó a esa violencia la presión del liberalismo exaltado en el marco de sus demandas de justicia popular, o revolucionaria, contra los enemigos del régimen liberal. Paralelamente, el conflicto contra los realistas rompió el equilibrio entre los poderes institucionales, lo cual incrementó significativamente el nivel de violencia, hasta que se impuso el poder militar con el apoyo del liberalismo exaltado y popular.

The memory of militarism and the ‘value’ of resistance: an analysis of the Resistance Memorial of São Paulo

ABSTRACT In the last 30 years, South American scholars and activists have produced a wealth of knowledge and representations practices concerning militarism and mass atrocities committed by the Armed Forces. Nonetheless, this body of work has been relatively neglected by debates in the field of Critical Military Studies (CMS). This paper attempts to bridge this gap by providing an analysis of the Resistance Memorial of São Paulo (RM-SP), a site inaugurated in 2009 in the former headquarters of the Brazilian political police. The analysis is based on short-term visits to the RM-SP in 2014 and 2018 and informal conversations with members of staff. The paper makes two central arguments: first, as a site of memory situated in the Global South and with strong links to survivors, the RM-SP invites radical accounts of political violence, pushing the boundaries of the concept of militarism beyond what is normally contemplated in CMS. Second, drawing on poststructuralist and post-Marxian critiques, the paper argues that the RM-SP is also a site of struggles; a space in which a radical narrative is held back by a certain language (a system of equivalences) that provides symbolic legitimacy to the present (neo)liberal order. On one hand, the RM-SP offers an intricate analysis of political violence that disturbs traditional liberal accounts of civic-military relations. On the other, its compelling representations of resistance are constantly threatened by the risk of commodification; the confusion between the values of past struggles and that which makes them exchangeable in the eyes of the present.

What Should We Mean by “Pattern of Political Violence”? Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique

To leverage the full range of observed variation in patterns of violence toward the development and testing of theories of political violence, scholars need adequate conceptual foundations: what should we mean by apattern of violenceon the part of an armed organization? Scholars often distinguish degrees or levels or types of violence across organizations and conflicts, but definitions and measures vary sharply. We argue that patterns of violence are not reducible in ways often assumed in the literature: lethal violence is not a good proxy for the overall pattern, and differences in patterns are not well captured in the binary “terror” versus “restraint.” To address these concerns, we provide a new conceptualization of political violence, defining an organization’spattern of violenceas the configuration of repertoire, targeting, frequency, and technique in which it regularly engages. This approach adds precision to the documentation and analysis of political violence, clarifies the evaluation of rival theories, and opens up new research questions. We demonstrate its utility through an analysis of violence against civilians in Colombia, drawing on an original database of massacres, judicial proceedings, and other sources, and show that the concept of “pattern” helps bring ideology and politics back into the analysis of organized violence.

Introduction: like finding a needle in a pile of needles: political violence and the perils of a brave new digital world

A critical framework for the analysis of political violence, terrorism and social movements must be based around a data-driven, empirical examination of primary source data. In an era of data overabundance, possible sources for analysis are all around us, from anonymous communiqués issued by social movements to slick propaganda videos issued by military-styled insurgent and guerrilla movements. The problem is no longer “Where do I find data?” but has now become “Through what metric can I measure reliability?” A critically situated analysis of violence must take into account the intentional manipulation of facts which is standard practice by both state and non-state actors. If one can acknowledge that both governments and Foreign Terrorist Organizations attempt to shape public opinion through selective reporting and misrepresentation, the study of political violence through the venue of discourse is appropriate. Therefore, discourse is a fitting site for critical engagement, as it is based around subjective reality and its construction, and not the establishment of authorship and “truth.”

Illuminating the Global Suicide-Attack Network

This article examines the contemporary phenomenon of suicide attacks by fusing network analysis and time-series econometrics. We find that a global network of militant organizations drives the reproduction of the suicide-attack phenomenon, and brokers within the network mark the primary perpetrators and diffusers of the tactic. The introduction of a fourth level of analysis of political violence demonstrates that network connections between organizations form a system that perpetuates suicide attacks. An organization-level analysis reveals that ideological congruence facilitates the establishment of network connections. As exemplified by the wide range of employers and targets, and moreover by the generation of an autogamous function, contemporary suicide attacks represent a unique sociopolitical phenomenon. Accordingly, organizations that use the tactic warrant a distinct classification.

Patterns of Radicalization in Political Activism: An Introduction

Research on political violence occurs in waves, generally corresponding to the successive swells of violence that in many ways define modern society. Critically, this violence is characterized as much by diversity as by uniformity. As each new spate in research on political violence has shown us, rarely can we generalize about either the aims or the repertoires of action of the purveyors of violence. Some similar mechanisms are in play, however, as violence develops from political conflicts between states and their opponents. This suggestion comes from social movement studies, whose influence is increasing in the analysis of political violence. These studies developed especially from a critique of ‘terrorism studies,’ which emerged within security studies as a branch of international relations and have traditionally been more oriented toward developing antiterrorist policies than toward a social scientific understanding of political violence.

Genocide and the Psychology of Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Victims

We live in a world laced with forms of political violence. Kristen Renwick Monroe's latest work develops an interesting social psychological account of the conduct of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the most extreme form of violence—genocide. It also employs an interesting narrative approach that contributes to broad methodological discussions in political science about the ways in which subjective experience can best be understood. We have thus invited a diverse group of political scientists and historians to comment on the book's analysis of political violence and on its broader approach to the study of politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Genocide and the Psychology of Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Victims

We live in a world laced with forms of political violence. Kristen Renwick Monroe's latest work develops an interesting social psychological account of the conduct of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the most extreme form of violence—genocide. It also employs an interesting narrative approach that contributes to broad methodological discussions in political science about the ways in which subjective experience can best be understood. We have thus invited a diverse group of political scientists and historians to comment on the book's analysis of political violence and on its broader approach to the study of politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Genocide and the Psychology of Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Victims

We live in a world laced with forms of political violence. Kristen Renwick Monroe's latest work develops an interesting social psychological account of the conduct of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the most extreme form of violence—genocide. It also employs an interesting narrative approach that contributes to broad methodological discussions in political science about the ways in which subjective experience can best be understood. We have thus invited a diverse group of political scientists and historians to comment on the book's analysis of political violence and on its broader approach to the study of politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Patterns of Radicalization in Political Activism

Research on political violence occurs in waves, generally corresponding to the successive swells of violence that in many ways define modern society. Critically, this violence is characterized as much by diversity as by uniformity. As each new spate in research on political violence has shown us, rarely can we generalize about either the aims or the repertoires of action of the purveyors of violence. Some similar mechanisms are in play, however, as violence develops from political conflicts between states and their opponents.This suggestion comes from social movement studies, whose influence is increasing in the analysis of political violence. These studies developed especially from a critique of ‘terrorism studies,’ which emerged within security studies as a branch of international relations and have traditionally been more oriented toward developing antiterrorist policies than toward a social scientific understanding of political violence.

Il primo dopoguerra in Italia: una guerra civile?

Fabio Fabbri’s Le origini della guerra civile develops an original analysis of political violence in Italy from 1919 to 1921. He argues that it is the consequence of the changes resulting from World War I in society and the liberal state, with particular emphasis on the role played by the State’s repressive system. More generally, the author considers the first Italian postworld war period as a civil war. The present review concentrates particularly on this interpretation.

Armed Struggle in Italy: The Limits to Criminology in the Analysis of Political Violence

Repeated calls to criminologists to engage in the analysis of violent political conflict have been followed by an abundant production of literature within the discipline. This article examines such production and attempts to delineate the limits to criminology in the analysis of political violence. By presenting interview extracts from a case study centred on violent political confl ict in Italy during the 1970s and 1980s, I demonstrate why criminology should seek supplementary explanatory categories within the broader realm of social theory, rather than rely exclusively on the theories and assumptions of traditional criminology.

The political economy of 'trauma' in Haiti in the democratic era of insecurity.

This article explores the challenges that emerge at the intersection of economies of compassion and terror: local, national, and international forms of humanitarian assistance; security practices in insecure social and institutional environments; questions of victimization and global reparations; and quests for justice, as revealed through an analysis of political violence and humanitarian interventions in Haiti during and after the 1991-94 coup period. Each domain is constrained by politics and history but can engender "occult economies" that challenge the intended consequences of restitution policies at international, national, and local levels of exchange. 'Trauma' and discourses about traumatic suffering are the hinge around which these economies pivot, generating new forms of political subjectivity for Haitian activists.

The Power of Violence in War and Peace

The Cold War sanitized the author's analysis of political violence among revolutionary peasants in El Salvador during the 1980s. A 20-year retrospective analysis of his fieldnote(s) documents the ways political terror and repression become embedded in daily interactions that normalize interpersonal brutality in a dynamic of everyday violence. Furthermore, the structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence that accompanies both revolutionary mobilization and also labor migration to the US inner city follows gendered fault lines. The snares of symbolic violence in counter-insurgency war spawn mutual recrimination and shame, obfuscating the role of an oppressive power structure. Similarly, everyday violence in a neo-liberal version of peacetime facilitates the administration of the subordination of the poor who blame themselves for character failings. Ethnography's challenge is to elucidate the causal chains and gendered linkages in the continuum of violence that buttresses inequality in the post-Cold War era.

The Anthropology and Ethnography of Political Violence

Two recent books have shown the fruitfulness of approaching the analysis of political violence and terror based on a set of general anthropological ideas about meaning formation, cosmology and ritual. One of these works in particular reveals links between what may be described as the cultural construction of political violence in modern industrialized contexts and the shaping of particular spatial and bodily symbolism among social actors. The other book has contributed to the field of cross-cultural studies of political violence by examining connections between the making of particular concepts of the past - or history - among groups of actors, and the suffering and perpetration of political violence. This study sheds general light on the relationship between collective remembering of violence and spirals of ethnic violence. This review essay also briefly assesses a third book, i.e. a collection of essays which discuss different aspects of what it means in theoretical, methodological, and ethical terms to carry out research based on fieldwork when political violence in the field is, or has until recently been, commonplace. Together the three volumes can be said to reveal central features of recent trends among anthropologists who investigate political violence.

Current research on terrorism: The academic perspective

Abstract Most definitions of terrorism, however divided on other points, agree that it is a form of political violence. Unfortunately, this rare unanimity has only infrequently served as a foundation for research on political terrorism, which is typically isolated from the broader field. There are advantages to be gained from integrating research on terrorism into the analysis of political violence. The study of terrorism, which is widely recognized as theoretically impoverished, stands to gain in theoretical scope, precision, and cumulativeness of findings. Situating the study of terrorism in the broader field could point analysts toward problems of significance to a larger community of scholars. Moreover, the phenomenon of terrorism might serve as a useful test‐case for general theories of violence, which are rarely applied to terrorism by their authors. This essay first identifies common problems for research. It turns, next, to a discussion of the relationship between the phenomenon of terrorism and o...

A technique for the analysis of political violence

Abstract The topic of violence, more specifically political violence, is a source of heated debate in South Africa and thus does not lend itself readily for objective analysis. The aim of this paper is to contribute towards an objective analysis of acts of physical violence of a political nature in South Africa. It is granted that proper analysis is not possible under present conditions. The current paper does not aim to present such an analysis. It presents a technique, giving some results of investigations done some time ago.