Low-level Violence Research Articles

Impact of Television News Exposure on Children's Perceptions of Violence in Northern Ireland

The present study assessed the impact of television news exposure on Irish children's perceptions of the level of violence in their neighborhoods. Estimates from children (N = 570) of the local levels of violence in three areas (high-, low-, and no-violence) were subjected to a four-way analysis of variance (Area x Sex x Age x News Exposure) that showed a main effect for area and sex with respect to the high-violence area and boys. Two two-way interactions also reached statistical significance. The first suggested that the perception of lower levels of violence by girls was confined to the high- and low-violence areas. The second concerned the level of actual violence and the amount of reported news exposure. Only in the high-violence area were these two variables related: Accurate estimates of actual violence levels were associated with more frequent news exposure.

The Causes of Terrorism

Terrorism occurs both in the context of violent resistance to the state as well as in the service of state interests. If we focus on terrorism directed against governments for purposes of political change, we are considering the premeditated use or threat of symbolic, low-level violence by conspiratorial organizations. Terrorist violence communicates a political message; its ends go beyond damaging an enemy's material resources.' The victims or objects of terrorist attack have little intrinsic value to the terrorist group but represent a larger human audience whose reaction the terrorists seek. Violence characterized by spontaneity, mass participation, or a primary intent of physical destruction can therefore be excluded from our investigation. The study of terrorism can be organized around three questions: why terrorism occurs, how the process of terrorism works, and what its social and political effects are. Here the objective is to outline an approach to the analysis of the causes of terrorism, based on comparison of different cases of terrorism, in order to distinguish a common pattern of causation from the historically unique. The subject of terrorism has inspired a voluminous literature in recent years. However, nowhere among the highly varied treatments does one find a general theoretical analysis of the causes of terrorism. This may be because terrorism has often been approached from historical perspectives, which, if we take Laqueur's work as an example, dismiss explanations that try to take into account more than a single case as exceedingly vague or altogether wrong. 2 Certainly existing general accounts are often based on assumptions that are neither explicit nor factually demonstrable. We find judgments centering on social factors such as the permissiveness and affluence in which Western youth are raised or the imitation of dramatic models encouraged by television. Alternatively, we encounter political explanations that blame revolutionary ideologies, Marxism-Leninism or nationalism, governmental weakness in giving in to terrorist demands, or conversely government oppres

Majorities and Minorities: A Comparative Survey of Ethnic Violence

Although violent conflict between ethnic groups occurs in many societies, its severity varies consider ably. Some societies, such as Lebanon or Cyprus, have experienced protracted conflict which has taken many lives. In other societies, such as Switzerland or Finland, ethnic conflict has been of little importance in recent decades. The political, economic, and demographic situation in 19 multi-ethnic societies is examined to see whether any pattern of majority-minority relations is associated with high or low levels of violence. It is concluded that there is a difference in the characteristics of high violence and low violence societies. Violent multi-ethnic societies are marked by severe political and economic inequality, constitutional differences, and demographic instability. Peaceful multi ethnic societies are characterized by economic parity between the ethnic groups, adequate political representation of the minority, and political decentralization. The existence of several "deviant" cases, with lower levels of ethnic violence than expected, is noted.

Cycles of war: Historical speculations on future international violence

The paper offers a historical approach to the problem of future international violence. It begins by arguing that the past can be used to predict the future. The modern European state system (since the fifteenth century) is designated both as an appropriate model and as the background to the present global state system. The history of the European state system reveals periods of war which are designated as probing (low level violence), adjusting (middle level violence) and hegemonic (high level violence); these periods appear to recur in cycles. The paper offers a number of explanations for these cycles and suggests that violence may be functional in the state system as a means of accomodating changes in power. The duration of these cycles may be interpreted as the time required for such power changes to occur. War would appear necessary in a state system which combines moderate change with moderate stability; it might be avoided only if the system were to move to the extremes of non‐change or continual c...

Low level violence

Low level violence

Low level violence

Low level violence