Transformations of Political Violence?

First TraCe Working Paper outlines research program on political violence

Opened books stacked against and on top of each other

Political violence has many faces: from riotous protests to wars between states. It remains ever-present and has immense moral and political impli­cations. However, the overall develop­ment of political violence remains poorly under­stood. The first TraCe working paper outlines a research program.

Christopher DaaseJonas J. Driedger, Stefan KrollSabine Mannitz, Hendrik Simon and Jonas Wolff identify three general positions: Political violence has either declined, escalated, or taken different forms. The authors provide a basic frame­work to better group existing ap­proaches, examine avail­able findings, and to en­able the design of further research to better understand the develop­ment of political violence.

The litera­ture shows: narrower and broader defini­tions of politi­cal violence exist, each allowing for a more focused or wholistic investi­gations. It also distin­guishes three crucial aspects of political violence: its forms and patterns, the role of politi­cal insti­tutions, and its social con­struction and justifi­cation, which are respre­sented in the TraCe research areas. A basic typology on the direction, basic units, and forms of political violence is also proposed.

Together, these definitions, aspects, and basic concepts provide a general frame­work with which to explore new ways of deve­loping political vio­lence. Connecti­ng diffe­rent strands of research from different disci­plinary perspec­tives is central to this.

The working paper is avail­able for down­load here.