1. Political Conflict, Political Violence

2. Political conflict
Cooperation and conflict - two main modes of politics
Interactions between them
Conflict can be waged by various means – from verbal to armed
Conflict intensity affects capacity to cooperate
Democracy accepts political conflict as a normal phenomenon and seeks to keep it in non-violent bounds
Ideally, democracy should not erupt in violence
In reality it often does

3. Political violence is the use of force for political ends
Force is one of the tools of power
People use force in:
Exercise of power
Struggle for power

4. Justifications of political violence
Claiming the right to use force – in the name of:
Survival, self-defence
Order
Justice
Freedom
Possession of resources (land, water, people, etc.)?
Access to markets?

5. Exercise of power
The state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force
The use of force is supposed to be regulated by law
Lawful use of force
Unlawful use of force
How precise is the distinction?
Who defines it?

6. Those in power have advantages in defining when they may lawfully use force – internally or externally
Capturing and punishing criminals – those who violate the rights of others
Protecting the existing order
Defending the country from aggression
Attacking other countries

7. Each of these actions of a state is a matter of contestation
Those in power may be wrong on any of these issues from the point of view of those who are out of power
Which is uppermost:
the state’s monopoly on the use of force?
or the existing constitution?

8. Political regimes differ in the degree to which they resort to violence
Democracy is supposed to require the least amount of violence
Totalitarian regimes are defined by their ready resort to state terror – they are terrorist regimes
Most politics today is between those extremes:
Violence as a last resort
Non-violent means of social control predominate

9. Amritsar, India, April 13, 1919: https://www. youtube. com/watch

10. Ca ira! French revolutionary song, 1789:

11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2UlNtNU-Tc “The Warsaw Song”
Anthem of Russian revolutionaries, 1917 (listen to audio)
“Hostile storms are raging over our heads.
Dark forces are viciously oppressing us.
We have engaged our enemies in a fateful battle,
And our destinies are not to be known.
But we shall raise, proudly and bravely,
The banner of the struggle for the workers’ cause
The banner of the great struggle of all nations
For a better world, for sacred freedom!
Refrain
Onward to bloody battle, holy and righteous!
March, march onward, working people!”

12. “We hate the tyrants’ crowns.
We will break the chains holding the suffering people.
We will redden the thrones, covered with the people’s blood,
With the blood of our enemies.
Death without mercy to all tyrants!
To all parasites feeding off the working masses!
Vengeful death to all plutocratic rulers!
The glorious hour of victory is near!
Refrain
Onward to bloody battle, holy and righteous!
March, march onward, working people!”

16. “A stone is a worker’s weapon”, by Russian sculptor A. Shadr

17. Russia, 1905: Mutuny on the battleship “Potemkin”

18. Armed citizen militia replaces the police in the Russian revolution of 1917

19. Chinese Communist poster from the 1950s: Mao Zedong calling for revolutionary war

20. The Tripoli Youth Movement, Libya, September 2018

21. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Violence is the midwife of history.”
Karl Marx

22. Use of force in international relations
Imperialism, aggression
Self-defence, wars of national liberation
Legitimation
Having the power to use force
vs.
Having the right to use force

23. What about nuclear weapons?
There are 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world today
They are in possession of just 9 states: (USA, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea)
They can be used by the order of a president – with devastating consequences
Whatever the political rationale, should any government be allowed to possess - and use - such destructive power?
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons:

24. Struggle for power
Use of force in politics by those out of power is outlawed
Use of force by governments: must be minimal, a last resort, and strictly regulated by law.
Maximum tolerance of dissent and opposition by the state: allowing non-violent struggles form power

25. Rationalizations of the use of force against the state:
Struggle for national independence
Resistance to the use of force by the state
Struggle for changes in state policy
Struggle for reorganization of the state
Struggle for political democracy
Struggle for social change
REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE

26. Why use violent means as a tool in these struggles
Why use violent means as a tool in these struggles? Why not use peaceful means?
Answers usually given:
Peaceful means may not be available
Peaceful means may be available, but not effective
Why not effective?
One may not have enough support in society
The existing political rules may be rigged in favour of the status quo
One may despise peaceful means and glorify political violence

27. Civil violence: use of force by groups of citizens against each other
Communal, ethnic, religious, political
The state is supposed to prevent it from happening
But it may be unable – or unwilling to do so
Governments may actually incite or encourage such violence to keep society under control

28. What does historical experience suggest?
Use of force is a legal prerogative of the state, but it can be counterproductive
Use of force by citizens against the state may be justified in extreme circumstances, but even when it can be morally justified, it can be counterproductive, too
The Communist experience
Revolutionary dictatorship, terror against opposition
Violations of human rights
Self-perpetuating rule by the bureaucracy
The end does not justify the means

29. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of the movement for India’s independence

30. Gandhi on Non-Violence
“The first principle of non-violence is the non-compliance with everything that is humiliating.”
“Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred.”
“Human dignity is best preserved not by developing the capacity to deal destruction but by refusing to retaliate. If it is possible to train millions in the black art of violence, which is the law of the Beast, it is more possible to train them in the white art of non-violence, which is the law of regenerate man.”
“The power at the disposal of a non-violent person is always greater than he would have if he were violent.”
“There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.”
“So long as one wants to retain one's sword, one has not attained complete fearlessness.”

31. 1930: Gandhi leads a non-violent march to protest British salt monopoly

32. Humanity’s attempts to ban or at least reduce political violence

33. The 20th century
Development of international legal norms to ban the most atrocious methods and weapons of political violence
By governments against each other – and against citizens

34. Weapons of mass destruction
Chemical and biological weapons
Banned by international conventions of 1925, 1972 and 1993
Nuclear weapons
1963, 1996: Treaties banning nuclear weapons tests
: Treaties limiting and reducing nuclear arsenals
2017: The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect:

35. Conventional weapons
1980: The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW or CCWC)
to provide new rules for the protection of civilians from injury by weapons that are used in armed conflicts and also to protect combatants from unnecessary suffering. The convention covers fragments that are undetectable in the human body by X-rays, landmines and booby traps, and incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons and the clearance of explosive remnants of war.
1997: The Mine Ban Treaty (The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction), known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine Ban Treaty 1997

36. 1948: The United Nations Genocide Convention banned "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". Examples:
Genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas (16th-19th centuries)
The Armenian genocide (1915)
The Holocaust ( )
The US war in Vietnam ( )
The Indonesian massacres of
The Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia ( )
The Rwandan genocide (1994)
1956 and 2016: an estimated total of forty-three genocides took place, causing the death of about 50 million people. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008.

37. Crimes against humanity
The term “crimes against humanity” was used for the first time in 1915 by the Allied governments (France, Great Britain and Russia) when issuing a declaration condemning the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
1945: crimes against humanity were for the first time prosecuted at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg. Both the Charter establishing the IMT in Nuremberg as well as that establishing the IMT for the Far East in Tokyo included a similar definition of the crime.
1997: creation of the International Criminal Court
Other tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Many States have also criminalized crimes against humanity in their domestic law; others have yet to do so.

38. From the Statute of the International Criminal Court:
“Any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
Murder;
Extermination;
Enslavement;
Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
Torture;
Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

39. Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
Enforced disappearance of persons;
The crime of apartheid;
Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

40. Trends in political violence:
The surprising decline of violence – Steven Pinker:

41. The hate speech controversy

42. The Cult of Violence Always Kills the Left