Talk:Political violence

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mfekade1366, Michaelaelan. Peer reviewers: Jp-columbia, Adrià Ardèvol, Amannavani.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:30, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Some General Comments
Hi and, this is a signficant development over the previous version of the page, and it seems much more comprehensive, much better connected to the rest of Wikipedia, and better organized. Well done. I have some comments and critical assessments, that I hope you or a future Wikipedian will handle: Chrisblattman (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The article is tagged as having an introduction that does not adequately or correctly summarize the contents. I think this tag predates your revision but the tag tag still rings true.
 * For instance, it reads "any groups and individuals believe that their political systems will never respond to their demands. As a result, they believe that violence is not only justified but also necessary in order to achieve their political objectives." While true, it doesn't seem very representative of the varied theories or motivations. That is, it seems much too specific.
 * Perhaps a better strategy would be to develop the definition more, and then describe the heterogeneity in types, theories, etc and why the page exists--as a guide to other pages and material.
 * Types
 * I added an explanation of what this section was trying to accomplish and why it was organized in that way
 * The categories and categorization did not make a lot of sense to me. So I made some hasty changes. I still think this section needs more thought and deliberation.
 * There are also several blank sections that I flagged for needing expansion
 * This also doesn't strike me as a comprehensive listing of types of violence, especially under violence between non-state actors.
 * I added some links to your classmates' pages. Ideally they would also have added a few lines here.
 * The trends section is a nice addition
 * The actors section is not especially helpful except as a list I suppose. Maybe it chould be integrated into the types section since it is organized by actor?
 * The theories section is a big improvement. This is important to develop further, but it is a large and difficult task.
 * The consequences section is a bit thin. More could be summarized and drawn from the Blattman and Miguel piece you cite.

Advice on For Future Edits
I've been working on this page for the semester and have some ideas on how to improve the page even further. Ideas will be posted soon! I worked on Trends, Theories, Consequences of political violence — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfekade1366 (talk • contribs) 17:47, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Mfekade1366 (talk)

Word Choice
I am planning on adding a section that lists the "solutions' to political violence. I plan on including peacekeeping, Military operations other than war, etc. I know that "solution" is not the best word, but I am struggling to think of alternatives. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks! Mfekade1366 (talk) 03:43, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks like this wasn't done yet, and so remains on the to do list?Chrisblattman (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Quality article ?!
Write a decent article specifically about the topic if you want this page to survive. I removed any off topic section that doesn't belong here as written and all what is left is the introduction (not going into details about the quality of that...).TMCk (talk) 23:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree, absolutely terribly written article, lack of sources and poor sources.--R-41 (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

NPOV tag removed.
I removed the NPOV tag. First of all, there's no discussion of why this tag was even added to article, except for one vague comment about the article being "terrible". After reading through the article, I did not see any blindingly obvious examples of NPOV violations.

Is the article anti-American? Anti-Western? Anti-Conservative? Too focused on Western nations? Does it give undue weight to very recent history? What? I hate trying to guess the motivation of random editors who tag an article without explaining their reasoning. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:21, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

State vs non-state violence
The lead summarizes political violence as violence used to achieve political goals. However, the body of the article primarily summarizes violence carried out by states or governments, such as police brutality, war, and counter-insurgancy. Political violence by non-state entities, such as terrorism, resistance movements, etc., is not mentioned. It seems like the article should either be moved to a different title (such as "State violence") or should be expanded to encompass all forms of political violence. 73.223.96.73 (talk) 19:37, 25 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually it seems that the ideal solution would be to move the current body into a new article, perhaps State violence, with a lead like "State violence is violence carried out by a state or government for political purposes." The lead from this article would remain as a stub, with see also links to Monopoly on violence, Rebellion, Resistance movement, Terrorism, Violent non-state actor, etc. 73.223.96.73 (talk) 19:58, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Points of Improvement, Thoughts?
I am working on the Political Violence page with Mahelet. We discussed doing a number of things to improve on the page. I myself will be working on the sections: genocide, human rights violation,police brutality, war, and famine.

1.Structuring the Page

Currently the page is a poorly organized and sparse list of forms of political violence. It lacks theories of political violence, who employs violence, and how those forms of violence are employed politically.

Potentially I would like to structure the page with theories of political violence and then list the forms of political violence beneath the applicable theories.

The forms of violence themselves need to be expanded as there are only 10 listed and we are unsure if human rights violations needs to be its own bullet as well whether not combine war and revolution.

The summaries of each form need to also be expanded. We talked about adding pertinent information from the linked pages as well as how the form relates to theories of violence and 2-3 examples of each.

2. Linking other Wikipedia pages

There are very few pages linked to the political violence page beyond those relating to the subheadings. As we add information, we plan to link as many terms and pages as possible. (Mahelet has already started to do that in the previous assignment)

3.Adding the Info from the Political Violence page to the linked pages

As we add information regarding theories of violence, we are looking to add that information to the linked page as well and link our page to the information.


 * &#123;&#123;SUBST:lowercase&#125;&#125; michaelaelan (talk) 15:18, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelaelan (talk • contribs) 05:44, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, . If you are skeptical that the current organization of the page is helpful, I recommend updating it. You're in a good position to offer some expertise in structuring this article at a high level (which may be much harder for a volunteer). Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Outline for Political Violence
Michaela and I are working on this page and have come up with an outline of what we want to do. One of our goals is to add a social science perspective to this page. We want to include social science that explains why a type of political violence is used. These explanations will be added to this page and to the main article for each type of political violence. Additionally, we want to make this page more list-like, so for each type of violence we want to link to as many relevant wiki pages as possible. Additionally, we plan on writing summaries for the types of violence not covered on this page already, like rioting, rebellion, and civil war.

I’ll be working on counter-insurgency, torture, capital punishment, terrorism, and revolution.

Counter-Insurgency: This summary should have a paragraph describing insurgency because insurgency and counter-insurgency go hand and hand. Additionally, the page should include examples like the Vietnam War, Iraq War, and Afghanistan War.

Insurgency/Counter-Insurgency Theories: The main page for counter-insurgency includes theories from Santa Cruz de Marcenado, B. H. Liddell Hart, David Galula, Robert Thompson, David Kilcullen, Martin van Creveld, and Lorenzo Zambernardi. Additionally, the main page for insurgency includes theories from Stuart Eizenstat, Gordon McCormick and David Kilcullen, and Thomas Barnett. From my research, these books are important in understanding insurgency/counter-insurgency, but aren’t mentioned on the insurgency or counter-Insurgency wiki pages:
 * Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse
 * Gil Merom’s How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam

Torture: I don't think this type of political violence is important, so I plan on deleting this section.

Capital Punishment: Nothing in this summary explains how capital punishment and political violence intersect. For example, how is capital punishment a form of political violence? I would make sure the connection is clear. Personally, I don’t think capital punishment needs to be on this page and I would delete it, but I feel bad deleting someone’s work.

Terrorism: Summary: I need to write a summary for this topic. I’ll write about what terrorism is, who uses terrorism, how terrorism is a form of political violence, examples of terrorism etc. Additionally, I’ll link to the terrorism, state terrorism, non-state terrorism, state sponsored terrorism, and definitions of terrorism wiki pages.

Theories: On the terrorism wiki page, there is little social science cited. From my research, I’ve found that these articles are important to read to understand terrorism.


 * Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 3 (2003) pp. 343-361
 * Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security 31, no. 1 (Summer 2006): 49-80.
 * Victoroff, Jeff, “The Mind of A Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49:1 (February 2005): 3-42
 * Martha Crenshaw, "The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics Vol. 13, No. 4 (1981) pp. 379-399
 * Erica Chenoweth, “Terrorism and Democracy,” The Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 16, pp. 355-375

Revolution: Summary: I need to write a summary. I’ll write about what a revolution is, how revolutions come about, how revolutions are a form of political violence, examples of revolution etc.

Theories: The revolution wiki page lists authors who discuss revolution and briefly mention their theories, however the theories are not explained in depth. From my research, I’ve found that these articles and books are important to read to understand revolutions:


 * Jack Goldstone, "Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory", Annual Review of Political Science 4, 2001:139-87


 * Jack Goldstone, "Theories of Revolutions: The Third Generation”, World Politics 32, 1980:425-53


 * Jack Goldstone, ed., Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, Third Edition (Thompson/Wadsworth, 2007)


 * McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 978052101187  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfekade1366 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Mfekade1366 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, . I share your bemusement at the capital punishment section. What do you think about deleting it entirely and including instead a similar summary of Extrajudicial killing as political violence? Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Recommendations for editing page (Peer review)
Democratization and the commencement of the Modern Political Era

You may want to consider political violence within the context of a path to democratization, as a means of fomenting the transition from authoritarian regimes to democracy throughout history. While the French Revolution and the dissolution of the Ancien Regime serves as the classic example of this process, you may want to look also at the 1848 “Springtime of The Peoples,” the series of revolutions that began in France and spread through Europe. Excellent social science analyses of the political violence that accompanied democratization in this era can be found in the work of The Age of Revolution: Europe: 1789–1848 by Eric Hobsbawm; States and Social Revolutions: A comparative analysis of France, Russia and China by Theda Skocpol); Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990 – 1992 by Charles Tilly; and Political Man by Seymour Lipset (While Political Man focuses on the developmental path to democracy and conditions necessary for transition, its value to your piece is the highly respected positions on societal cleavages – ideological, class, religion, etc… – and “contentious politics” that agitate political violence). There are many more, but I have read these and would highly recommend reviewing these for this purpose.

Socialist Revolutions/Communist Regimes

The rise of socialism in the 19th Century and its emphasis on class oppression served as a major source of political violence. In The Communist Manifesto, their seminal work on achieving the socialist state, Marx and Engels argued for the use of political violence and “revolutionary terror” as necessary means for overthrowing the social order. This can serve as a lead into an analysis of political violence associated with socialist-inspired uprisings leading to communist states, such as the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and Nicaraguan revolutions; the promulgation of the Soviet republics, Eastern European satellites, and the Soviet puppet regime in Afghanistan; the rise of communist states in North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Yemen; and the Soviet proxy wars for communist states in Africa (Angola, Benin, D.R. Congo, Ethiopie, Somalia, Eritrea, and Mozambique), Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay) and Asia (Maoists in Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines). One related example of large-scale political violence could include the political and ideologically motivated purges that took place in Russia, China, and Cambodia following the ascension to power of communist regimes.

Anti-colonial independence movements/wars of national liberation

The scale of decolonization that occurred during the 20th Century, particularly in the wake of World War II, was unprecedented in history. A degree of political violence accompanied the efforts of a number of anti-colonial movements throughout the world – especially in states where independence was gained through wars of national liberation. There is some crossover in this subheading, with some notable examples as Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) falling into both the categories of “anti-colonial independence movements” and “communist insurgencies.” Some interesting case studies here could be Algeria (France), Kenya (Britain), and the former Ottoman Empire territories of the Levant that were under the control of the British and French). This would, of course, lead to an analysis of the terrorist campaigns against the British and Palestinian population carried out by the Irgun, Stern Gang, and the Lehi (who sought fruition of Zionist aims) and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict(s) that arose following the dissolution of the British Mandate and the founding if Israel in 1948.

Arab Spring

I see several options for the preparation of a section on the “Arab Spring” under political violence, but the most efficient would be to draw correlations to the process of democratization in Europe from the previous section. There is already a significant amount of social science connecting the two (thus, the origin of “Spring” in Arab Spring is in deference to the “Springtime of The Peoples.”

Other case studies that would be most appropriate for this page:

· Studies of political violence in the context of ethnic nationalist movements, such as the Basque and Catalan movements in Spain; Kurdish movement in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; the Balkan ethnic nationalist conflicts; the Northern Ireland conflict (While “The Troubles” had religious elements, most consider it an Irish ethnic nationalist struggle);

· Political Islam, with its origins in the philosophical contributions of Sayyid Qutb to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to the aspirational evolution of the movement adopted by such organizations as al-Qaida and ISIL/ISIS; the page on political violence could also include data on the violence carried out within territories under the control of these groups.

· Apartheid in South Africa: consider political violence carried out by the SA Bureau of State Security and its contractors to sustain White rule and political violence carried out by the African National Congress (ANC)/Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) aka Spear of the Nation, and the SA Communist Party to end Apartheid. · Interventions: consider military interventions; providing ordnance, intelligence, and other material support for dissident groups/insurgencies; clandestine/black operations, including political assassinations, carried out in foreign nations. During the 20th Century, the US and Soviet Union led the world in such involvement. US examples of each category above include the US military incursion in Colombia to create Panama; the CIA operation in Iran to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh and install the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi; and intelligence sharing with General Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, 1972-1990, that led to multiple detentions and extrajudicial executions.

· Forced disappearances/dirty wars: While I’m most familiar with the “dirty wars” in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Chile, and Central America, there have been dirty wars carried out by secret police throughout the world involving forced disappearances, torture, and executions motivated by political ideology.

· Examples of ethnic cleansing/genocide include Armenia, Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Sudan, Iraq and Syria (by Islamic State).

Critique: I’m not sure if human rights violations, torture, capital punishment, or police brutality are appropriate to exist as sub-headings for this page. Perhaps they should be categorized as aspects of political violence under the respective subheadings where the activity has been observed.

Jp-columbia (talk) 02:30, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

One more suggestion:

In my spare time, I have been reading The Better Angels of our Nature, and I think an interesting approach to the Political Violence page might be to include a macro view of political violence, which has been on a persistent decline over time due to the rise of the modern state, urbanization, increased communication and interaction between members of different societies, commerce (which is beneficial not just because of the increased contact, but because it places economic incentives on the parties the promote cooperation), increased access to knowledge (which promotes reason), and other factors explored in the book.

Jp-columbia (talk) 18:51, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review
I like the overall structure of the page and I think the sections are laid out in an appropriate order. You should consider adding a section on political violence mitigation and conflict resolution and explore the theories on how to prevent different types of political violence and how to resolve conflict. I just have a few comments on each section below.

In the lead section, there are a few forms of political violence that you could mention that do not involve the state. The state does not necessarily have to be involved in the violence for it to be classified as “political” violence. For example, riots often refer to a violent clash between two groups in society, where at least in principle, the state remains neutral. Violence can occur when a group or mob attacks an individual for political reasons. Conversely, an individual can attack a whole group, as is often the case with a terrorist attack. Since as you rightly mention, political violence is a very broad term, I think it is important that you at least mention the various forms of political violence partly in order to emphasize that political violence does not have to include the state as a participant. Moreover, I think you should briefly explain how “non-action” on the part of the government could lead to violence. Is it because of its refusal to intervene and help a minority group that is under attack? The impression I get from the lead section is that the government is always the key actor that is to blame for political violence either by not responding to the people’s demands, or by waging war to conquer territory or by no acting at all. However, the government might not necessarily the primary cause of all types of political violence. I think it is important to get that point across in the introduction.

I am not sure whether famine constitutes a separate type of political violence. Famine can also be a cause of political violence as opposed to a type of political violence. It depends on whether the state deliberately “initiated or prolonged” it or whether it was an inevitable consequence of a drought. I think you could elaborate on how you would ascertain whether the government was complicit in causing or worsening the famine. Moreover, if the government is indeed involved, then a famine could be characterized as a method of quelling a counter insurgency and you could mention famines under the “counter insurgency” subsection.

When working on the “Trends” section, you could describe the spatial and temporal variation in the incidence of political violence in the world. You could then talk about the variation in the types of political violence that have occurred, identifying which types of political violence are most common and perhaps also commenting on whether certain types of violence have been more likely to occur in certain regions of the world or at certain points in history.

I like your method of classifying theories of ethnic violence by their unit of analysis. However, this distinction is not always clear cut. You should comment on how individual incentives are shaped by more macro-level events and narratives. For example, ethnic violence can occur when politicians mobilize the masses along ethnic lines to win an election which in turn brings the saliency of ethnic identity to the forefront of an individuals's consciousness. Perceptions of relative deprivation are often exaggerated by regional and national politicians who have a vested interest in doing so. This was especially prevalent in the Tamil-Sinhalese civil war in Sri Lanka. Tamil leaders often played up its community's minority status in Sri Lanka to incentivize its population to fight. The Sinhalese population cited the large Tamil population in India and the large Tamil diaspora's role in funding the Tamil fighters to point out that they were in fact the aggrieved minority. Moreover, widespread grievance only leads to violence when the state is weak which provides an opportunity for would-be insurgents to attack the state.

In the “consequences of political violence” section you have talked about the human rights violations as a negative consequence of war. However, you should include some possible positive consequences of war. We read in class about Jeffery Herbst’s claim that warmaking often leads to state making. Violence can also lead to positive economic effects; WWII helped pull America out of the Great Depression. This will help to make the section more balanced.

Amannavani (talk) 04:12, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review (Armand L)
Hello! I thought I posted my comments earlier but I must've forgot to save my edits. As a result, I will try not to be redundant as the previous two posts have covered most of the technical criticism I could offer. Structurally, this article is sound. I took the same approach on my rebellion page (micro/macro), I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this as I am dealing with broadly the same question. Your article has made me rethink my own work so as to make sure I am not saying the same stuff in different words. Which brings me to this: I wonder if you should not try and frame the concept a little more. Namely, I would suggest to define the two terms: "political" and "violence" in the lead, or an introductory section, because in fact I am not even sure what "political violence" conceptually refers to. This being said, I base this on my experience working on the "rebellion" article, where I also have had a lot of trouble narrowing down my topic and reviewing rebelllion-specific literature.

I find the distinction between violence led by organizations or by individuals crucial in this framework. If someone kills his neighbor because he did not vote for the same person, is that political violence? I would suggest reading some of Carl Schmitt's work on "the political", where he basically argues it comes down to one thing only: the dichotomy between "friends" and "ennemies". But then again this analysis is questioned by the proponents of micro-level analysis. In that regard, I would also recommend S.N. Khalyvas' "Ontology of Political Violence", a paper in which he makes a good case for a hyperlocal analysis of conflict, seeing as most violence is not ideological or identity based (according to him and simplifying a lot) but in many ways an extension of personal grudges, angst, greed etc....

I disagree (respectfully) with the editor above me on the criticism of the "micro" level causes of violence. In fact, I would argue to prioritize this section, as the best recent research to explain violence itself seems to go this way. However you look at it, violence remains at heart an individual mechanism that we care about because it hurts individual humans. A caveat: because you are writing about a conceptual term, I think you should include political theorists that have tackled this question. Two that come to mind are Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss.

Once your "definition" paragraph is done, your article will be very informative because you have and will have a lot of ressources. This is good. Furthermore, your current structure seems to tackle most of the main questions linked to political violence (what is it/where does it come from/how does it happen).

What you could address if you want to: - Can we predict it? (add to the "trends" paragraph) - When is it legitimate? I think this last question is crucial. Michael Walzer has written a bunch of stuff on that. Here, I think, you can also include Seeing Like A State, Olson's article on stationary bandit, Tilly's argument that state = fiscal capacity because it introduces well the concept that the very existence of a state hinges on the existence of political violence. Again respectfully disagreeing with the first editor, I think the categories of human rights violation, torture, police brutality are all relevant on this page, maybe not as single paragraphs BUT it is definitely important that you discuss those diffuse mechanisms of violence.

Final suggestion: whenever discussing violence and the political, it's hard for me not to invoke Foucault. I'm not sure if you should mention him on this page. If you do, I recommend "discipline and punish", where he discusses the transformation of the state from a point where it has the power to give death to where it can literally "make live". Foucault's insight is showing that discipline, in a state-centered societt, is imposed in most facest of everyday life. I would encourage you to briefly look over his work, see if anything catches. I think that it could be a nice addendum for an encyclopedic page.

Overall, I think your structure is very sound. I would continue with the emphasis on "micro" violence and with the exploration of political violence within a a-priori legitimate context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrià Ardèvol (talk • contribs) 13:50, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Richard Spencer
Would the punching of Richard Spencer deserve a brief mention here? What about Anarchism? Benjamin (talk) 09:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

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the section One-sided violence by non-state actors
only contains 1 sub-section: Terrorism

I'm surprised that there is no sub-section Assassinations.

One example : afaik, no one would name the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (by Sirhan Sirhan, then 24) an act of Terrorism.

Isn't legal state violence political violence too?
Hi, isn't the use of legal coercion from the state inherently political as well? I'm asking this because the question of whether or not a state is legitimate (even when it's almost universally regarded as so) is a political one, just as laws that are violently enforced by police or the millitary are the result of political values. 85.144.202.148 (talk) 20:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * No, that's state violence: an underdeveloped page. Please go develop it. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:45, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Militancy and Terrorism
So, something I've noticed is that there's an informal protocol on Wikipedia to refer to what state actors often call "terrorist" organizations as "militant" organizations, which, I think is kind of a polite fiction, but have, anyways, come around to.

I probably have in surfing Wikipedia before, but haven't in terms of just looking for this, done a comprehensive survey of these articles. I, anyways, think that it should say something like that they participate within political violence, including a link to this article, in either the lead or the first few paragraphs, assumedly before the first break, as just saying that they're militant makes political violence on the part of non-state actors seem kind of like it's something other than what it is.

The article on the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance already mentions that they were ruled to have committed crimes against humanity, and, so, this may be somewhat redundant, but this should somehow apply to state actors as well. The article on the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari says that they were an "Italian terrorist neo-fascist militant" organization, which I'm not even going to edit, but I would avoid having the articles read as such.

Perhaps, this article could just be integrated into all of the other articles somehow or, at least, it could be standard form to link to this article in the see also section? I'm not entirely sure, but mere militancy, anyways, does importantly differ from political violence. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 15:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)