Violence Coercion Research Articles

Liquor Rations and Labour Management in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World

Abstract A striking yet underexamined system of labour management circulated between land and sea in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world: the use of liquor rations to stimulate worker productivity. Turning to the British naval warship and the American slave plantation, this article depicts how labour supervisors in both settings relied on carefully regulated quantities of alcohol to extract more labour from their workforces. Even as Anglo-American temperance activists called for sobering up the working classes, many naval commanders and slaveholders held firm to the belief that managed intemperance was an essential tool for mobilizing workers. The study of liquor rations and the arguments endorsing their distribution helps to reveal how a spectrum of coercive labour practices swept through the Atlantic world amid the emergence of an industrial capitalist order. Zooming in on the history of these rations enables us to discern labour extraction strategies that operated between the poles of violent coercion and market-based exploitation, and that animated vital sectors of the Atlantic economy during the nineteenth century.

School physical education in conflagrated areas: a documentary research in Complexo do Salgueiro, São Gonçalo

In this study, we intended to discuss how School Physical Education can influence (and be influenced) by the sociocultural contexts related to armed violence in the daily life of the Complexo do Salgueiro community. Although it is recognized for its plurality of circulating cultures, this territory of the city is known to be occupied by armed groups that operate under violent coercion in the municipality of São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro. The aim was to understand the episodes of violence in this region, chosen as the locus of research, as well as its manifestations in schools, in the discipline of Physical Education. The methodological path followed was rooted in the personal history of its first author with the daily life of the communities of Complexo do Salgueiro. As a result, it was observed that as Physical Education in schools can be negatively influenced by violence, it contributes positively through the promotion of critical awareness and health. However, it is important to highlight that it is essential to strengthen community initiatives that promote a culture of peace, and people mobilization to pressure the State to implement comprehensive public policies to prevent and combat violence.

Sequential Standoffs in Police Encounters With the Public

Research on interactions involving police officers foregrounds the importance of their communicative practices for fostering civilians’ perceptions of police legitimacy. Building on this research, we describe a pattern of conduct that is a recurrent source of trouble in such encounters, which we call sequential standoffs. These standoffs emerge when two parties persistently pursue alternative courses of action, producing a stalemate in which neither progress in, nor exit from, either course of action appears viable. They are routinely resolved by officers (re)casting civilians’ pursuit of one course of action as constituting resistance to the officers’ proposed course of action, and thus as warranting officers’ use of coercive violence to resolve the stalemate. In some cases, however, officers resolve standoffs cooperatively using sequentially accommodative methods. We consider how these findings advance approaches to communicative dilemmas in policing, and their broader significance for scholars of social interaction, and of the interactional organization of conflicts.

Milton's Legal Duel: Nature and Norm in Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes

Abstract: Scholars have often linked John Milton with natural law; this article argues instead for the strong interest of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in legal positivism. By the mid-seventeenth century, thinkers like Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes were in their different ways proposing a natural law based on self-preservation rather than theology, and as a result natural law became increasingly indistinguishable from political defactoism and reason of state. Milton struggled more than is generally recognized with the threat this naturalism posed to free will and moral value, and he responded by anticipating the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers like John Austin, Hans Kelsen, and H. L. A. Hart, who made positivism central to liberal jurisprudence. Positivism asserts legal norms to be based on their authoritative source rather than their conformity with fact or reason, and thus positivist legal theory offers an escape from ethically minimal natural law. Positivism, though, also relies on preexisting, potentially arbitrary authority and makes penal sanctions constitutive of legal order, and these qualities paradoxically bind positivism to the worst features of naturalism: determinism and coercive violence. Milton grapples with precisely these issues in his 1671 poems, and his conflicted embrace of positivism illuminates a number of puzzles long noted in these works.

Ruling Violently

This article analyzes the criminal governance exercised by the Mexican criminal organ­ization Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), contributing to the scarce information available on this topic. Specifically, we ask how the CJNG has exercised territorial control to ensure the operation of its businesses, mostly concentrated in the production and sale of illegal drugs. Based on a small number of existing studies and publicly available information, we argue that the CJNG relies on a dual system of territorial control consisting of the prioritization of violent coercion vis-à-vis its opponents together with a discourse of protecting Mexicans sustained by selected initiatives to provide security and other basic services to the population to gain legitimacy. This combination has allowed the cartel to grow and expand rapidly over the last decade.

“Ready to Die”: The Notorious Cuff, a Resistant Enslaved (Akan) Male in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey

Abstract This essay explores the little-known yet fascinating 1767 murder of Daniel Hart at the hands of his enslaved male named Cuff, an alleged Akan person from Ghana, West Africa. The murder provides a crucial interpretive window into eighteenth-century New Jersey and the hostile relationship between bondmen and their male enslavers that could be described as warfare, that is, as a constant state of conflict that involved violent coercion. In its attempt to hear Cuff's muted oppositional voice, the essay engages a range of sources, including a popular rap song from the 1990s. In doing so, the essay refutes the portrayal of Cuff as evil, lazy, and hence, historically irrelevant. It frames the bondman as empowered by his Akan culture, which encouraged him to resent his existence under a white patriarchal system that degraded him in various ways, and in a larger white patriarchal society that policed his Black body, thereby making permanent escape an impossibility. Feeling boxed in by slavery and the larger society, Cuff took Hart's life and then his own, with the idea of making a spiritual journey to the ancestral realm. Armed with the weapon of cultural suicide, Cuff had reached the point in his war with Hart where he was, to borrow from rapper Notorious B.I.G., “ready to die.” Cuff's obscured story sheds important light on the destructive ramifications of New Jersey slavery, suggesting that Blacks fought whites for the preservation of their bodies and sense of self-worth with powerful (hidden) weapons.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Politics of Perestroika

Abstract Archie Brown notes how the meaning of perestroika, a concept Gorbachev used well before he became Soviet leader, changed over time. The focus is on Gorbachev as a politician operating in the Soviet domestic context. Contrary to widespread retrospective belief, the USSR was not in crisis when Gorbachev became general secretary, and he was not forced to embark on fundamental change. He began with the aim of achieving economic reform and some political liberalization. However, from January 1987 onwards, he prioritized political reform. His thinking continued to evolve, and by 1988–89 he had embraced not only liberalization but a political pluralization that amounted to systemic change. Such, however, was the intertwining of party and state that abandonment of ‘democratic centralism’ and the Communist Party’s monopoly of power led to a crisis of Soviet statehood by 1990–91 and to perestroika’s major unintended consequence – the dissolution of the USSR. Through persuasion and negotiation, rather than violent coercion, Gorbachev had tried and failed to prevent this disintegration of the USSR. But, successfully overcoming entrenched conservative resistance, he had already used the authority of his office and his powers of persuasion to leave Russia a freer country than it had ever been.

Концепт політичної довіри та реалії посттоталітаризму (методологічний аспект)

The article considers the interrelation between the mechanisms of total control implementation and political trust formation in a totalitarian state with an emphasis on the goals and methods of shaping social awareness, which determines the features of the further transformation of the political regime. In particular, the expediency of interpreting the features of posttotalitarian consciousness as a factor in the formation of institutional trust in the process of democratization is argued. The relevance of the research question is determined by the fact that political trust is traditionally analyzed to explain public support for politicians or political institutions in a democratic or transitional regime. However, sometimes scholars ignore or even deny its role in supporting certain types of undemocratic authority. In this context, considering the general interpretation of totalitarianism as mass terror, as well as its broader understanding with the recognition of the monistic essence, the article proposes to shift the focus of attention to the controlling function of the state, realized through mass repressions, mass propaganda activities and the process of resocialization. Arguing that a totalitarian state requires a specific subjectivity from citizens in establishing such political control, the author proposes to consider the combination of violent coercion (external control) with political self-censorship (internal control) as a condition for its totality. Therefore, from a methodological point of view, the expediency of determing external control as a factor of the formation of political trust, and political self-censorship as a consequence of trust in totalitarian authority is argued. The article also substantiates that the government-supported inversion relationship between political and interpersonal trust is important for explaining the specifics of trust after the change of political regime in the state. Consequently, author proves that the so-called artificial formation of trust within the dictatorship plays a significant role in explaining post-totalitarian transformations. In particular, it determines the support of formal and informal political institutions in the context of democratization.

Mapping Coercive Violence.

We conceptualize a new and distinct form of intimate partner violence: coercive violence. Coercive violence is a form of intimate partner violence in which the abuser intentionally engages in acts that expose his partner to state surveillance and violence at the behest of institutions or the state, including the child welfare system and the criminal legal system. Because the violence is perpetrated by an institution rather than an individual, it is difficult for the victim/survivor to seek justice or retribution. We conclude with suggestions for future research that interrogates coercive violence, its impacts on victims/survivors, and strategies for preventing it.

Franciscanos en Valdivia, Chile (1769-1848). Practicas de conversion y la civilizacion al interior de las misiones huilliches

The aim of this article is to understand the work of Christianisation in the missions of the Colegio de Propaganda de San Ildefonso de Chillán in Valdivia between 1769 and 1848. It investigates the spaces of evangelisation, particularly the daily experience inside the missionary establishments. The methodology contemplated the review of the Miscellaneous Affairs Fund of the College of Chillán, especially letters from the religious of the interior missions to the Prefect and annual reports of missionaries from Valdivia. Other materials on the process of Christianisation in Valdivia come from the Archivo Histórico de Santiago, the Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografía and the Publicaciones del Archivo Franciscano. The analysis of these writings shows the forms adopted by the internal regime of the missions of the Colegio de Chillán, when putting into practice the rules of the Regulations of Missions of 1775 (Iturriaga, 1992), which ranged from violent coercion -evidenced in the control of bodies by means of punishment and the retention of children and women- to multiple forms of persuasion and symbolic domination that were appropriated, adapted and resisted by different means by the Mapuche-Huilliche subjects who lived temporarily in the missions.

Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance

Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance

Why incumbents perpetrate election violence during civil war

Civil conflict increases incumbents’ vulnerability, expands their coercive capacity, enervates public good provision, and stifles public opposition. Consequently, we expect that elections held during civil conflict will feature more incumbent-perpetrated election violence. We test our argument with disaggregated data on election violence, generating two principal findings. First, elections held during civil conflict are more likely to feature violent coercion by incumbents. Second, this effect does not depend on the conflict's intensity or political salience, but is endemic to conflict-affected societies as a class. This raises questions about the nature of elections in conflict-affected societies and the relationship between forms of political violence.

Living in the frame of structural violence: Institutional regulations and daily life in Lleida, Spain

This article investigates how structural violence is reflected in the daily life of the peripheries of a medium-sized city in the interior of Spain. For this, three categories of analysis are used: inquisitive violence, coercive violence and horizontal violence. Forms of resistance are also highlighted. This makes it possible to trace the various ways that state institutions act and behave to exercise power over people. These actions have direct consequences for ‘vulnerable’ population, inducing feelings of humiliation, personal and group suffering, the perpetuation of social inequality, the lack of democratic freedoms, and the creation of violent or exploitative practises. Likewise, this path allows us to see how neoliberal logics are applied, their consequences and, most importantly, how they generate new normalities and livelihoods that serve as discursive support for new applications of antisocial policies.

The victimisation of farms in Ireland: fear of crime, social isolation and crime prevention

This paper explores farmer’s experiences of crime and their attitudes towards crime prevention in one rural hinterland. Farmer’s attitudes about safety and crime present a dichotomy: fear of victimisation was relatively high, yet few participants reported having been victimised, and there was a perception that agricultural crime was high in Ireland but low in their locality. Feelings of insecurity were partly influenced by the closure of rural Garda stations and uneven distribution of information technology. Participants were most concerned with theft of small machinery, violent coercion connected to fraudulent work, illegal dumping and trespassing, rather than thefts of expensive machinery and livestock. Participants reported being unable to afford some crime prevention measures and/or having insufficient time to implement them. The paper concludes by highlighting the relevance of Farrell and Tilley’s (2020) concept of elegant security to farm crime and discussing the role of community policing.

Enclosing the Seas

Abstract This article outlines a process of enclosing private property on the Arabian Sea through the colonial imposition of secure property rights during the nineteenth century. The article proceeds in two paralleled sections. The first section explores the violence of the natural world through the lens of shipwrecks. It traces a shift in the right to shipwrecked property from littoral communities to the merchants who owned the cargo before it was seized by the waves. The second section traces the shift from merchants who deployed violence as an essential tool in commercial competition, to relying on the British Empire for the security of their property and the strategic use of force. On the one hand, both these transitions involve the imposition of classical political economy and the colonial seizure of protection rents obtained by merchants. However, they also reflect the ways in which maritime potentates and influential merchants were able to co-opt imperial policies and profit from this transition. Over the course of the nineteenth century, violent coercion was expunged from the skillset of Arabian Sea merchants, but only after compensating merchants and coastal communities for relinquishing the profits of protection.

Realism and Power in Mark Twain's

Realism and Power in Mark Twain's

Desperate, deceived and disappointed: women’s lives and labour in rural Ethiopia and Uganda

ABSTRACT Life history interviews from Ethiopia and Uganda, organised around experiences of wage labour, provide rich evidence on the working conditions of many poor, rural women and on what leads them to work for wages. The life histories confirm and illuminate arguments based on large-scale socio-economic surveys carried out in these two countries. Further, findings from the surveys and life histories challenge an influential literature that not only celebrates women’s agency in poor rural areas, but also remains committed to methodological individualism and ideas of choice. Drawing on primary and secondary evidence from Africa (and elsewhere), we insist that violent coercion and catastrophe trump maximising rational selection among alternatives; that the social is fundamental to individual behaviour; and the non-market is key to (labour) market participation. We also provide a brief discussion of the policy implications of this research.

The Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach

The Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach

To co-opt or coerce? State capacity, regime strategy, and organized religion in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam

This article explores the dynamic relationship between states, authoritarian regimes, and organized religion in the ostensibly Marxist-Leninist states of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Despite espousing an initial shared ideological commitment toward curbing the influence of domestic religion, actual regime policies toward these groups have varied considerably over time. I argue that the explanation for this difference can be found in unpacking the strength of each regime’s state apparatus. This article introduces a new typological theory for understanding how state capacity has shaped the divergent strategies Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese regimes have employed to manage organized religion during the post-Vietnam War era (1975 to present). In brief, I argue that regime elites in Vietnam have successfully co-opted organized religion through the state bureaucracy. Conversely, Marxist-inspired regimes in Cambodia and Laos have oscillated between policies of coercive violence and strategic accommodation to dilute the power of domestic religious groups.

The Ideology and Agency of Kosovar Albanian Marxist Groups in the Demonstrations of 1981

Abstract The author explores the ideological underpinning and political goals of Kosovar Marxist-Leninist groups and examines their role in the 1981 demonstrations in Kosovo. She contextualizes these events against the backdrop of theories of revolutionary violence that were prevalent in Kosovar Albanian Marxist groups. Describing the position of Albanians within socialist Yugoslavia, she traces the formation of these groups of dissidents and their support of Hoxhaism—following the political views of the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha. Hoxhaist propaganda shaped anti-Yugoslav dissidence to a certain extent, and the author throws light on the nationalist incentive to support Hoxhaism. She contextualizes Yugoslavia’s response to the demonstrations as an act of coercive violence aimed at stemming events that the Yugoslav officials perceived to be both counter-revolutionary and to presage the rise of nationalism.