Legitimate Violence Research Articles

Legitimacy of violence: extra-military versus intra-military legitimacy

ABSTRACT This article is conceptually motivated. By drawing on cases from the U.S. and Israeli militaries, it aims at demonstrating the existence of two separate systems of legitimacy of military violence – extra-military and intra-military – and mapping the gaps between them. It conceptualizes the legitimacy of violence and then maps seven conditions under which gaps are created between the two systems, as follows: the uniqueness of military culture, the extent to which the military does not mirror society, field command’s broadening improvisation and interpretation, ambiguous political directives, the extent to which the military leverages a legitimacy dispute, troops’ resistance, and the diachronic systems of legitimacy. The appearance of these gaps is more likely to present with weakening of civilian control and the break-up of military hierarchy.

Conspiracy Theories, Psychological Distress, and Sympathy for Violent Radicalization in Young Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread uncertainty, promoted psychological distress, and fueled interpersonal conflict. The concomitant upsurge in endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is worrisome because they are associated with both non-adherence to public health guidelines and intention to commit violence. This study investigates associations between endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, support for violent radicalization (VR) and psychological distress among young adults in Canada. We hypothesized that (a) endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is positively associated with support for VR, and (b) psychological distress modifies the relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy theories and support for VR. A total of 6003 participants aged 18–35 years old residing in four major Canadian cities completed an online survey between 16 October 2020 and 17 November 2020, that included questions about endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, support for VR, psychological distress, and socio-economic status. Endorsement of conspiracy theories was associated with support for VR in multivariate regression (β = 0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80–0.96). There is a significant interaction effect between endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and psychological distress (β = 0.49, 95% CI 0.40–0.57). The magnitude of the association was stronger in individuals reporting high psychological distress (β = 1.36, 95% CI 1.26–1.46) compared to those reporting low psychological distress (β = 0.47, 95% CI 0.35–0.59). The association between endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and VR represents a public health challenge requiring immediate attention. The interaction with psychological distress suggests that policy efforts should combine communication and psychological strategies to mitigate the legitimation of violence.

TAWASSUT ATTITUDE RELEVANCE NAHDLATUL ULAMA IN PREVENTING EXTREMISM

What was currently happened is the legitimacy of violence, which justified theologically as the term jihad fī sabīlillāh. Radicalisms believed and felt they had the right to commit acts of violence in the name of religion and God. In facts, what they were doing was violating religious rules and staying away from God. The attitude of tasawuf and tawassut in Nahdlatul Ulama prevented radicalism. Based on the background of the problems described above, the study focused on how was the concept of tawassut and tasawwuf in preventing radicalism movements? The purpose was to find out the meaning of tawassuf in Nahdlatul Ulama and to describe the concept of tawassut and tasawwuf in preventing radicalism. The results revealed that tawassuṭ and tasawuf which were a meeting point between the two, discuss how to realize the attitude of tawassut in Nahdlatul Ulama in the digital era, and discuss the actualization of the attitude of tawassuṭ in realizing peace.

Undocumented in the time of pandemic: exploring legal violence, health care and human rights of irregular Filipino migrants in Italy and the UK

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of states’ pandemic responses to the conditions and vulnerabilities of undocumented Filipino migrants in Italy and the UK. It also explores the role and strategies of migrant organisations in addressing the issues and concerns of undocumented workers.Design/methodology/approachQualitative approaches are used to collect and analyse the narratives of the migrants and migrant organisations. This paper used government reports, policy briefs and documents from international organisations in analysing the socio-political vulnerabilities of undocumented migrants in the context of the global pandemic. In addition, we interviewed leaders of migrant organisations, which are involved in supporting irregular migrants.FindingsThe study reveals that states have exercised a regime of legitimate violence against undocumented workers in Italy and the UK. This regime is imposed not only by the stringent laws and policies that directly and indirectly cause economic, social and even cultural suffering to the migrants but also by the “symbolic violence” manifested in structural and social inequalities, and the exploitative economic order amid the pandemic. Responding to the “regime of fear”, migrant organisations provide immediate relief and “safe spaces” for the undocumented workers.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the ongoing conversation on state practices in regulating migration by framing the conditions of undocumentation as legal violence that structurally deprives irregular migrants access to health care and human rights amid global health crisis.

CHURCH AND STATE IN THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF K. BART AND S. HAUERWAS. AN ATTEMPT OF COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The paper provides analysis of the teachings of K. Barth and S. Hauerwas on the relations between church and state. Unlike the Reformers, Swiss theologian proves the possibility of a positive connection between church and state and points out some ways of its realization. According to K. Barth, both church and state, belong to the Christological sphere, which legitimizes the latter for the church community, as well as calls for mutual service. According to S. Hauerwas, the criterion of power is the legitimization of violence, while the special feature of the church is the ability to make peace. In addition, Hauerwas demonstrates the danger of uncritical acceptance of dominant narratives on the example of liberalism. Thus, on the one hand, the paper demonstrates, the differences in the views of K. Barth and S. Hauerwas, and on the other hand, reflects on common grounds of both theologians, making this research highly relevant today.

Legitimation of hate and political violence through memetic images: the Bolsonaro campaign

The federal elections were held in Brazil in 2018. The ballot resulted in a victory for the far-right candidate, Jair Messias Bolsonaro. The question that arose after the victory of the far-right was: How could this have happened? One of the instruments that undoubtedly contributed to this unexpected victory was a peculiar aspect of his political campaign: memetic communication. Through the use of memes in the social media (above all WhatsApp), Bolsonaro’s project transformed these violent discourses against political opponents, feminism, racialised persons and poverty into a series of discourses legitimised through humour and irony. It was a simplification through the memes affecting the static system of cognitive and metaphorical frameworks. During the pre-election period in 2018, we carried out digital ethnographic research in the WhatsApp groups of supporters of Bolsonaro’s project (“Bolsonarism”). In this period, we collected a sample of 132 memes belonging to WhatsApp groups composed of up to 256 members, who did not know each other and were geographically dispersed. The analysis we carried out demonstrates the trivialisation and legitimisation of violence against political opponents and other social groups. Much of this legitimisation was camouflaged under the mask of supposed humour and irony, which in reality was insulting, prejudicial and dehumanising.

Gender, Anxiety, and Legitimation of Violence in Adolescents Facing Simulated Physical Aggression at School.

We analyzed gender and anxiety differences in middle school students facing a physical peer aggression situation. The participants were 1147 adolescents aged between 12 and 18 years (male: n = 479; female: n = 668) who watched a 12 s animation representing the situation and filled out a questionnaire to analyze the legitimation of violent behaviors and anxiety levels. We registered their decisions to solve the situation using a categorical scale that included assertive, avoidant, aggressive, submissive, and supportive behaviors. Gender was not associated with the adolescent’s behaviors in facing a simulated peer aggression situation. However, male teenagers tended to perceive adults as sanctioners and neutrals; those who used the diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization to justify their behavior also showed a higher state of anxiety. Female teenagers who expected legitimation from their peers, presented higher anxiety as well. Educational interventions may use these results, helping adolescents to understand that their acts have substantial implications in the lives of others. It is essential to develop group interventions that modify how adolescents manage their conflicts and change gender stereotypes that significantly impact health. We highlight the need for linking families in educational programs facing the challenges of transforming the legitimization of violence in parental practices.

Taking the matter into your own hands: ethnographic insights into societal violence and the reconfigurations of the state in contemporary Turkey

ABSTRACT This article explores the changing configurations of statehood in the Turkish context through an exploration of men’s engagements with conspiratorial narratives, vigilantism, and extralegal violence against whom they deem to be ‘subversive’ elements. Drawing on ethnographic research on nationalist communities in Trabzon, in northeast Turkey, I trace everyday encounters, imaginations, and utterances to understand how the circulation of conspiracy theories is intricately related to the production and prevalence of societal violence. Rather than dismissing them as untruthful accounts, I explore how the circulation of conspiratorial narratives issue forth pathways through which men act in the name of the state to confront threats against the integrity of the state/nation. The article demonstrates how certain state privileges (e.g., surveillance and legitimate violence) are delegated to civilian actors and how this delegation reconfigures the way the state operates in the Turkish context. Presenting an account of the changing parameters of statecraft, law, and political subjectivity in the Turkish context, findings of this research are of relevance since various other contexts across the globe also experience the adverse effects of the prevalence of conspiracy theories, vigilantism, and extralegal violence.

Queering Genocide as a Performance of Heterosexuality

Genocidal violence centrally targets the social bonds that hold communities together. In postcolonial contexts, it is well documented that social relations can be characterised by heteronormativity. Furthermore, postcolonial scholars have done extensive work on demonstrating the link between colonialism and genocidal violence. Responding to a gap in the academic literature, this article interrogates the relationship between (post)colonial heterosexuality and genocide. Seeing queer theory as also relevant to the study of non-queer individuals’ experiences, this article argues that postcolonial genocidal violence can be characterised by attempts to impede heterosexual group reproduction. Using the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar as an illustrative case-study, it argues that the emergence, character and legitimisation of violence here depended on the construction of heteronormative subject-positions. Furthermore, it argues that genocidal violence reinforces the subject-positions it is rooted in, giving them the appearance of immutable facts. From this basis, the article concludes that postcolonial genocidal violence can be read as a performance of heterosexuality.

Associations between Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories and Sympathy for Violent Radicalization in Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moderation by Psychological Distress

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has spread uncertainty, promoted psychological distress and fuelled conflict. The concomitant upsurge in endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is worrisome because they are associated with both non-adherence to public health guidelines and intention to commit violence. This study investigates associations between endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, support for violent radicalization (VR) and psychological distress among young adults in Canada. We hypothesized that a) endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is positively associated with support for VR, and b) psychological distress modifies the relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy theories and support for VR.Methods: A total of 6003 participants aged 18-35 years old in four Canadian cities completed an online survey that included questions about endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, support for VR, psychological distress, and socio-economic status.Outcomes: Support for VR was associated with endorsement of conspiracy theories in multivariate regression (β=0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80-0.96). The magnitude of the association was stronger in individuals reporting high psychological distress (β=1.36, 95% CI 1.26-1.46) compared to those reporting low psychological distress (β=0.47, 95% CI 0.35-0.59).Interpretation: The association between endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and VR represents a public health challenge requiring immediate attention. The interaction with psychological distress suggests that policy efforts should combine communication and psychological strategies to mitigate the legitimation of violence.Funding: Fonds Québécois de Recherche en Santé et Culture grant #2017-SE-196373 and Équipe de Recherche et Action sur les Polarisations Sociales grant #180645.Declaration of Interests: None to declare. Ethics Approval Statement: Ethics approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board ofthe Faculty of Medicine at McGill University before initiating the study, and all participants provided an electronic informed consent.

The Popular Basis of the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: How American Voters Use Political Values to (De)Legitimate Gun Rights

Stemming from Max Weber (1946 [1919]), many sociologists understand legitimate violence as monopolized by the state. The literature has established that for the state to maintain legitimacy it must either demonstrate sustained efficacy or have its legitimacy based on the values of its citizens (Lipset 1963a). The statistics on gun control in the United States (Giffords Law Center 2020) and sociological literature (e.g., Hill et al. 2020a, 2020b) demonstrate the sustained inefficacies of gun rights. Thus, this article investigates the legitimacy of these rights in terms of voters’ political values. I use a case set (Small 2009) of 120 voters interviewed in Arizona from 2013 to 2015. My analysis is an example of qualitative secondary analysis (Duchesne 2017; Belot and Van Ingelgom 2017; Davidson et al. 2019). My findings confirm and extend the literature on the bases of legitimate violence in the United States (e.g., Shapira and Simon 2018; Carlson 2019). Furthermore, my findings provide evidence of voter socialization into a political culture that uses public, declarative, and non‐declarative forms of culture in conjunction (e.g., Lizardo 2017). These findings also bridge the sociological literature on values (Wuthnow 2008), political sociology (Lipset 1963a), the sociology of culture (Miles 2015), and moral psychology (Haidt 2012).

The violence of norms: resisting repertoires of gender violence in post-conflict Colombia

ABSTRACT Feminist scholarship on gender violence in Latin America has elucidated its ubiquity and deep entrenchment within many societies, from the colonial encounter until the present day. As such, it remains important to enquire into the relationship between sociocultural norms and gender violence: how norms enable and legitimate gender violence, and how these norms can be reconfigured to resist gender violence. This article draws on Judith Butler’s work on normative violence to explore how norms enabled, legitimated and obscured the distinct repertoires of gender violence in Colombian civilian society and left-wing rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Butler’s theorization on how norms can be challenged, both through different gender performances and the revision of criteria of gender intelligibility, is then extended to understanding the emergence of resistance to gender violence in The Common Alternative Revolutionary Force, the political party which the FARC transitioned into in 2017.

Guns don\u2019t kill people\u2026: good guys and the legitimization of gun violence

Building on literatures that examine why firearms are appealing and to whom and employing Weber’s concept of “legitimate violence”, this paper utilizes an online concealed carry forum to critically analyze how firearm proliferation is rationalized in the U.S. The analysis focuses on three specific examples of violence—the Parkland, Florida, and Philando Castile shootings, and stories of children who find guns and shoot themselves and/or others. This work is a critical examination of the social construction of “legitimate violence” that deconstructs the discourses embedded in the “pro-gun” notion that the answer to gun violence is more guns.

Понятие государства в работах М. Вебера и Г. Ландауэра: анализ веберианского определения из перспективы анархической теории

The article focuses on the concept of the state in the works of the German sociologist M. Weber and his contemporary, the anarchist G. Landauer. Specifically, it is commonly thought that Weber has a unique interpretation of the state, its nature, and inalienable characteristics. This Weberian approach did not fit into any of the traditions that existed at that time in Germany (for example, represented by H. Kelsen, G. Jellinek, and O. von Gierke). However, the author of the article tries to demonstrate that three main Weberian aspects of the state — 1) the monopoly on legitimate physical violence, 2) the relationship of domination, which is accompanied by a minimum desire to obey, and 3) the chance for the regular reproducibility of these relationships — are consonant with Landauer’s concept of the state. This discovered conceptual affinity allows one to look at Weber’s sociology from new angles, without being impacted by the personal beliefs of the German scientist, who very critically treated anarchism as a socio-political movement. In the final section of the paper, the author discusses the modern project of “anarchist sociology”, which also uses Weberian methodology. The paper argues that “anarchist sociology” might be a promising social science with ts unique vision of several key sociological topics, such as domination, power, or social inequality.

Violence in Camus and Sartre: Ambiguities

AbstractThe friendship between Albert Camus and Jean‐Paul Sartre was torn apart over the question of the justifiability of violence in the service of a desired political end. I argue that the undeniable political and moral differences between Sartre and Camus are in fact ones of emphasis and not, as they themselves came to believe, ones of total opposition. A careful consideration of points of connection, however ambiguous, allows for a more nuanced narrative of Sartre’s and Camus’s famous relationship and of debates about justice and the legitimacy of violence that remain central to our contemporary world.

Corruption, illegitimacy and external influence: political factors of state instability

The article constructs a descriptive and analytical description of the connection between corruption, delegitimization and loss of state sovereignty over society as background factors for increasing external influence and the destruction of political and spatial cohesion. As a result of the study, a conclusion was formulated, according to which the complete or partial loss of legitimacy coincides with the spread of corruption, which entails the devaluation of value and regulatory systems of social behavior. It is emphasized that corrupt practices contribute to the destruction of morals, law, ideology, have a devastating effect on government structures, procedures for its institutionalization, prevent the nomination of elites and leaders to command positions in the state apparatus, negatively affect the power and centralizing capabilities of the state. legitimate physical violence. It is noted that the loss of legitimacy is preceded by the loss of dialogue between government and society, the habitualization of corruption and its transformation into an endemic component of social life.It was stated that corruption increases the level of public permeability for external actors who take advantage of the situation of blurring the boundaries of political space and encourage citizens to spontaneous protests, which should shake the procedural principles of law and order, to achieve open conflicts between government and self-organized communities. what are the conditions for dialogue. External actors can seek to actively discredit the ruling elites by simultaneously unscrewing instability and escalating waves of destructive criticism aimed at disavowing all kinds of legitimacy: ideological, ethnic, structural, personalistic (charismatic), and others.It is noted that the final destruction of the state is the loss of a monopoly on public violence within the procedures established by law. Actors of external influence can resort to various acts of violence in order to encourage the ruling elites to increase security with the use of special Praetorian groups (paramilitary formations).It is summarized that the emergence of paramilitary formations is an indicator of the fragility of the state and its inability to control its own power structures, as evidenced by the violation of paramilitary formations of the usual official hierarchies and privatization of legitimate violence by alternative centers of power. Finally, it is emphasized that the destructive accompaniment of the latter is the growth of shadow arms markets, criminalization of the behavior of ordinary citizens who cease to see the state as an authorized defender of sovereignty and security and cease to trust legitimate law enforcement agencies, and these processes precede their colonial expansion. frozen conflicts with accompanying negative consequences for the state.

Civilian Disarmament: Public Order and the Restoration of State Authority in Italy’s Postwar Transition, 1944–6

Despite its impact on the breakdown of public order and on the rise of armed violence, the role of civilian disarmament in post-Second World War transitions is yet to be properly investigated. This article argues that the disarmament of the population was a key passage in two critical aspects of the normalization of postwar Italy: the reaffirmation of State authority and the reconstruction of control structures in response to the delegitimization of established authorities that followed their collapse in September 1943. Specifically, the article focuses on the intersection between the proliferation of war weapons, public order policing, and the recovery of Italian sovereignty in the aftermath of the Second World War. This article will demonstrate that disarmament was instrumental in reshaping Italian institutions according to the imperative of regaining control over the national territory in a context marked by foreign occupation, conflicting claims of legitimacy and the inversion of the monopoly on legitimate violence. The urgency to disarm incentivized both Italian and Allied authorities to rebuild the State control system in accordance to the pre-existing model of a centralized, authoritative administration. This led toward the preservation - in the sphere of public security - of agencies and individuals strongly compromised with the Fascist regime.

LEGITIMATE VIOLENCE IN ILLEGITIMATE TIMES: DIO’S THEORIES OF LEGITIMACY

Comparing legitimacy in the three different contexts of literary leisteia, Late Republican civil war actors, and contemporary Severan emperors reveals Dio to be consistent when discussing legitimate violence. In all three, Dio presents establishing legitimacy as a primary factor in attaining power. As the required skills to achieve power differed from those for ruling, the resulting ruler could be disastrous. Through employing the ‘noble bandit’ topos, Dio questions the emperors’ suitability, comparing them to bandits. Overall, Dio interprets Late Republican history differently from his sources for Republican history. In his view, future statesmen cannot rely upon the mos maiorum.

Enemies of All Humankind: Fictions of Legitimate ViolenceGendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics

Book Review| March 01 2020 Enemies of All Humankind: Fictions of Legitimate ViolenceGendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics Enemies of All Humankind: Fictions of Legitimate Violence. By Schillings, Sonja. Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth College Press. 2017. xi, 287 pp. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $40.00; e-book, $7.99.Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. By McKinnon, Sara L. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. 2016. vii, 165 pp. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $25.00; e-book, $14.95. Claudia Sadowski-Smith Claudia Sadowski-Smith Claudia Sadowski-Smith is the author of The New Immigrant Whiteness: Neoliberalism, Race, and Post-Soviet Migration to the United States (2018) and Border Fictions: Globalization, Empire, and Writing at the Boundaries of the United States (2008). She is also the editor of Globalization on the Line: Culture, Capital, and Citizenship at U.S. Borders (2002) as well as of two special journal issues, one on postsocialist literatures in the United States and the other on comparative border studies. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2020) 92 (1): 162–164. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-8056644 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Claudia Sadowski-Smith; Enemies of All Humankind: Fictions of Legitimate ViolenceGendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. American Literature 1 March 2020; 92 (1): 162–164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-8056644 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsAmerican Literature Search Advanced Search The two monographs under review signal the renewal of scholarly interest in intersections between legal and cultural forms of representation. Rather than drawing on the existing interdisciplinary fields of critical legal studies or critical race theory, however, these two authors construct their own divergent approaches to the study of representation/discourse and the law.Divided into five parts and thirteen chapters, Schillings’s lengthy book explores the evolution of the concept of hostis humani generis (the enemy of all humankind) in philosophical and literary texts, such as in treatises on piracy and in novels by James Fenimore Cooper, Dashiell Hammett, Richard Wright, Kurt Vonnegut, and Mohsin Hamid. Developed by philosopher Augustine of Hippo and jurist Hugo Grotius, who both also contributed to just war theory, the concept of hostis humani generis, Schillings argues, serves as a kind of legal fiction to justify the violence... Copyright © 2020 by Duke University Press2020 Issue Section: Book Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

The Ubiquity of State Fragility: Fault Lines in the Categorisation and Conceptualisation of Failed and Fragile States

In the last three decades, the categories of fragile and failed states have gained significant importance in the fields of law, development, political science and international relations. The wider discourse plays a key role in guiding the policies of international community and multilateral institutions and has also led to the emergence of a plethora of indices and rankings to measure and classify state fragility. A critical and theoretical analysis of these matrices brings to light three crucial aspects that the current study takes as its departure point. First, the formulas and conceptual paradigms show that fragility of states is far more ubiquitous than is generally recognised, and that the so-called successful and stable states are a historical, political and geographical anomaly. Second, in the absence of an agreed definition of a successful state or even that of a failed or fragile state, the indicators generally rely on negative definitions to delineate the failed and fragile state. They generally suggest that their reading is built on a Weberian ideal–typical state, which takes the idea of monopoly over legitimate violence as its starting point. The third and final point suggests that the indicators and rankings, misconstruing the Weberian ideal–typical state, actually end up comparing fragile states against an ideal–mythical state. The article argues that this notional state is not only ahistorical and apolitical, but it also carries the same undertones that have been the hallmark of theories of linear development, colonialism and imperialism.