Violence and security lecture notes
Lecture 1
Introduction and overview
Conceptualizing Violence
- Johan Galtung (1969) provides a compelling way to think about violence and peace.
- 2 types of violence:
• Direct violence: Behaviors carried out by a clearly identifiable agent with the intent to
inflict bodily harm.
• Structural violence: Violence as present when humans systematically cannot fulfil
their physical and mental potential. Violence does not require intent and does not
require a clear agent.
- During this course focus on direct violence, especially political violence
• Political violence occurs in wartime (conflicts where there as 1000+ battle-related
deaths in a given year) and in times of “peace” (e.g. electoral violence, ethnic riots)
Conceptualizing Peace
- Johan Galtung’s (1969) typology of peace:
• Negative peace: The absence of direct violence
• Positive peace: A self-sustaining condition that protects the human security of a
population
What do we mean by ‘paradigms’?
- The idea of paradigms comes from Thomas Kuhn (1962)
- Paradigms or theoretical frameworks are lenses through which we see the world
- They contain assumptions about:
• The most important actors, as well as their behaviors and motivations.
• What leads to war and violence
• What allows for peace and security
Paradigms and Approaches to Violence and Security
1. International Relations
2. Comparative Politics
Paradigms
Realism
- Actors: The state is the principal actor of international politics
- Nature of the State:
• The state is a unitary and rational actor seeking to maximize its own interests
• National security is a first order preference (i.e. it trumps all)
- Understanding of Conflict/Order:
• The international system is characterized by anarchy, which means that security is
not guaranteed.
• Power (generally defined as material capabilities) is a central concern to realism,
because it is key to security.
• The likelihood of war is shaped by the distribution of power in the international
system
,Liberalism
- Actors: State and non-state actors are important.
• E.g. Transnational advocacy networks (Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink 1998)
- Nature of the State: State preferences are an aggregate of preferences of a wide range of
state and societal actors.
• Preferences not necessarily opposing
• National security not always the most important consideration
- Understanding of conflict/order:
• Conflict is not inevitable; cooperation and mutual gains are possible.
• Order is possible through:
1. Economic interdependence and free trade
2. International institutions
3. Democratic institutions
Constructivism
- Actors: Actors and the interests that drive them are socially constructed.
- Assumptions about agent behavior:
• Political action is shaped by identities and interests.
• Who the actor is shapes what they view as appropriate action
• Conflict and peace are therefore shaped by the content of identities and interests,
which is why norms are so important to social constructivism.
Approaches
Instrumentalism
- Elites as the primary explanatory variable for the presence/absence of conflict
- Assumptions of instrumentalism:
• Elites seek to maximize political power and other material gains and will foment
violence to meet their interests.
Institutionalism
- Institutionalism is an approach seeks to understand how political struggles are
mediated by the institutional setting in which they take place.
Constructivism
- Groups as socially constructed and groups are not unitary actors.
- Violence as a means of delineating and asserting group boundaries
Lecture 2
Violence and state formation
What is the relationship between violence and state formation?
Does war make strong states?
Key Concepts
- State: The organization that has a monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force
within a given territory in the enforcement of its order (Weber).
- State Formation: The long-term processes leading to the centralization of political power
within a sovereign territory.
- State capacity: The ability of states to accomplish their goals.
, • Often measured by a state’s military power and its bureaucratic/administrative
capacity (e.g. taxes)
The Bellicist Approach to State Formation
State Formation according to Tilly
- ‘‘War made the state, and the state made war” – Tilly
• States go to war
• War is expansive → extraction (e.g. taxation)
• Extraction is difficult → state building (e.g. better bureaucracy)
• State building and extraction → state has more money → better protection
- War → strong states
The Cold War and State Making in East Asia
- Stubbs 1999
• The Cold War context helped several Asian states build their military and
bureaucratic capacity
o Threat of war in for example Japan and South Korea created strong states,
war in Vietnam didn’t create strong state → threat of war creates strong
states
• But US aid was key
o External funding → no state building needed, but because of threat of war
still happened
War and State Making in Latin America
- Centeno (2002)
• War in Latin America did not lead to state building
• No incentive for governments to extract from population:
o Other revenue sources
o Scale of war was not ‘total’
• The Spanish colonial state meant that the bureaucratic apparatus was very weak
Alternative Explanations to State Formation
- Trade makes the state
• Capitalism makes states
• People need institutions for trade → state building
• No predatory state and social contract
- The modern state originates in ideological change
• State created out of ideas
• (Is about conditions that make creation of state possible)
Lecture 1
Introduction and overview
Conceptualizing Violence
- Johan Galtung (1969) provides a compelling way to think about violence and peace.
- 2 types of violence:
• Direct violence: Behaviors carried out by a clearly identifiable agent with the intent to
inflict bodily harm.
• Structural violence: Violence as present when humans systematically cannot fulfil
their physical and mental potential. Violence does not require intent and does not
require a clear agent.
- During this course focus on direct violence, especially political violence
• Political violence occurs in wartime (conflicts where there as 1000+ battle-related
deaths in a given year) and in times of “peace” (e.g. electoral violence, ethnic riots)
Conceptualizing Peace
- Johan Galtung’s (1969) typology of peace:
• Negative peace: The absence of direct violence
• Positive peace: A self-sustaining condition that protects the human security of a
population
What do we mean by ‘paradigms’?
- The idea of paradigms comes from Thomas Kuhn (1962)
- Paradigms or theoretical frameworks are lenses through which we see the world
- They contain assumptions about:
• The most important actors, as well as their behaviors and motivations.
• What leads to war and violence
• What allows for peace and security
Paradigms and Approaches to Violence and Security
1. International Relations
2. Comparative Politics
Paradigms
Realism
- Actors: The state is the principal actor of international politics
- Nature of the State:
• The state is a unitary and rational actor seeking to maximize its own interests
• National security is a first order preference (i.e. it trumps all)
- Understanding of Conflict/Order:
• The international system is characterized by anarchy, which means that security is
not guaranteed.
• Power (generally defined as material capabilities) is a central concern to realism,
because it is key to security.
• The likelihood of war is shaped by the distribution of power in the international
system
,Liberalism
- Actors: State and non-state actors are important.
• E.g. Transnational advocacy networks (Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink 1998)
- Nature of the State: State preferences are an aggregate of preferences of a wide range of
state and societal actors.
• Preferences not necessarily opposing
• National security not always the most important consideration
- Understanding of conflict/order:
• Conflict is not inevitable; cooperation and mutual gains are possible.
• Order is possible through:
1. Economic interdependence and free trade
2. International institutions
3. Democratic institutions
Constructivism
- Actors: Actors and the interests that drive them are socially constructed.
- Assumptions about agent behavior:
• Political action is shaped by identities and interests.
• Who the actor is shapes what they view as appropriate action
• Conflict and peace are therefore shaped by the content of identities and interests,
which is why norms are so important to social constructivism.
Approaches
Instrumentalism
- Elites as the primary explanatory variable for the presence/absence of conflict
- Assumptions of instrumentalism:
• Elites seek to maximize political power and other material gains and will foment
violence to meet their interests.
Institutionalism
- Institutionalism is an approach seeks to understand how political struggles are
mediated by the institutional setting in which they take place.
Constructivism
- Groups as socially constructed and groups are not unitary actors.
- Violence as a means of delineating and asserting group boundaries
Lecture 2
Violence and state formation
What is the relationship between violence and state formation?
Does war make strong states?
Key Concepts
- State: The organization that has a monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force
within a given territory in the enforcement of its order (Weber).
- State Formation: The long-term processes leading to the centralization of political power
within a sovereign territory.
- State capacity: The ability of states to accomplish their goals.
, • Often measured by a state’s military power and its bureaucratic/administrative
capacity (e.g. taxes)
The Bellicist Approach to State Formation
State Formation according to Tilly
- ‘‘War made the state, and the state made war” – Tilly
• States go to war
• War is expansive → extraction (e.g. taxation)
• Extraction is difficult → state building (e.g. better bureaucracy)
• State building and extraction → state has more money → better protection
- War → strong states
The Cold War and State Making in East Asia
- Stubbs 1999
• The Cold War context helped several Asian states build their military and
bureaucratic capacity
o Threat of war in for example Japan and South Korea created strong states,
war in Vietnam didn’t create strong state → threat of war creates strong
states
• But US aid was key
o External funding → no state building needed, but because of threat of war
still happened
War and State Making in Latin America
- Centeno (2002)
• War in Latin America did not lead to state building
• No incentive for governments to extract from population:
o Other revenue sources
o Scale of war was not ‘total’
• The Spanish colonial state meant that the bureaucratic apparatus was very weak
Alternative Explanations to State Formation
- Trade makes the state
• Capitalism makes states
• People need institutions for trade → state building
• No predatory state and social contract
- The modern state originates in ideological change
• State created out of ideas
• (Is about conditions that make creation of state possible)
