A Test of a Partial Theory of Potential for Political Violence

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 928-959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward N. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Additive Model ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Authority Structure ◽  
Accuracy Of Prediction

Potential for political violence is defined by a summated scale built from two cumulative scales measuring approval of and readiness to engage in behaviors which constitute progressively greater challenge to a political regime. A prevalent explanation of potential for political violence proposes that the major direct antecedent is relative deprivation. The partial theory proposed here does not assign a central role to relative deprivation; rather, diffuse support for the political authority structure, and belief that political violence has led to goal attainment in the past, are proposed as major direct antecedents. Relative deprivation is denned by position on the Cantril Self-Anchoring scale with respect to three welfare values. The measure of diffuse affect for the political authority structure is a weighted summation of items measuring the degree to which political authorities are believed to wield power honestly, benevolently, and justly. Belief that political violence has led to goal attainment is denned as a summation of items measuring the degree to which the use of political violence by dissident groups is thought to have been helpful. The data base is a sample of a population in which instances of political violence have been frequent in the past. A linear additive model of Potential for Political Violence, with Trust in Political Authorities and Efficacy of Past Violence as describing variables, shows an accuracy of prediction which is satisfactory and superior to that yielded by a multiplicative model.

The Strange Case of Relative Gratification and Potential for Political Violence: The V-Curve Hypothesis

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 514-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard N. Grofman ◽  
Edward N. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Additive Model ◽  
Absolute Magnitude ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Optimum Level ◽  
Moderate Degree ◽  
The Past ◽  
Negative Change ◽  
Degree Of Association

Perception of discrepancy between optimum level of achievement with respect to desired values and actual level of achievement is a concept that has figured importantly in explanations of collective violence and its subset, political violence (approval of and readiness to engage in behaviors which constitute progressively greater challenge to a political regime). Hypotheses about relationships between a number of static and dynamic achievement discrepancy constructs (labeled “relative gratification,” and built from a variant of the Cantril Self-Anchoring scale) are tested. The achievement discrepancy constructs generally show only a weak degree of association with potential for political violence. However, measures of shift over time in discrepancy show an unexpected and intriguing relationship with potential for political violence: individuals who perceive negative change and individuals who perceive positive change show the highest potential for political violence, while individuals who perceive no change show the lowest potential for political violence; and this V-Curve relationship persists in the presence of various control variables. Moreover, absolute magnitude of shift in discrepancy from present to future shows a moderate degree of correlation with potential for political violence, and makes an independent contribution to a linear additive model. The data base is a sample of a population in which instances of political violence have been relatively frequent in the past.

A Humanistic Approach to Outreach: Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

1991 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
David Rymph ◽  
Linda Little
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
Illegal Immigrants ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Humanistic Approach ◽  
The U.S

Washington, D.C., like many major cities in the U.S., has experienced a large influx of illegal immigrants in the past decade. Hundreds of thousands of Hispanics have entered the United States, many of them fleeing from the political violence in Guatemala and El Salvador. The Washington metropolitan area may have as many as 80,000 refugees from El Salvador alone.

scholarly journals THE ISSUE OF LEGITIMACY OF THE LATVIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 313
Author(s):  
Gunārs Ozolzīle
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Diffuse Support ◽  
Sufficient Resource

A democratic political system can be sustainable and stable only if it has society’s support that is based on legitimacy. So far, the attention of Latvian researchers has mostly been devoted to the so-called “ratings” of separate political institutions and politicians, but no attempt has been undertaken to investigate the political system as a whole through the prism of legitimacy. The aim of the present article is to explore whether there is a sufficient resource of legitimacy of the Latvian political system in order to provide stability and efficiency of the regime. The empirical basis of the research mostly consists of the results of the sociological research conducted in Latvia during the past six years (2011–2016). The data analysis of the present research is based on David Easton and Pippa Norris’ conceptual approach to the study of legitimacy of political systems. One of the conclusions that can be made is that the political system of Latvia is characterised by insufficient diffuse support, which then indicates that the political system experiences the problem of legitimacy. As there is a divided society in Latvia, both communities lack a shared national identity, which could connect the society. In addition, it can be stated that around half of the society is not satisfied with the functioning of the political regime. The analysis performed in the article allows concluding that the trust in political institutions is extremely low and the assessment of the political authority performance is highly negative.

Is Democracy Possible in Russia?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Andrei Val’terovich Grinëv
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Political System ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The West ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
The Past

Abstract This article discusses the question of why a Western-style democracy has not been formed in Russia. The prerequisite for the formation of a democracy as a political regime is the domination of small and medium-sized private property and a middle class. Since the middle class has been small in Russia throughout most of its history for a number of objective reasons, the country has hardly known full-fledged democracy, and the current political system only imitates it. Russia’s attempts to enter the trajectory of democratic development—both in the early twentieth century, and since the early 1990s–have failed, and the trend of abandoning the basic principles of democracy has prevailed over the past two decades. The blame for this lies not only on the current Russian leadership but to no lesser extent on the political leadership of the West, which for the sake of short-term self-serving interests or political ambitions has contributed much to the formation of the current Russian regime.

From Bullets to Bureaucracy

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-86
Author(s):  
Casey Marina Lurtz
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Spaces

Order and progress have long defined both the ambitions and achievements of governments across Latin America at the turn of the century. This chapter demonstrates how local actors also put those ideas into play, working around political violence by engaging with state bureaucracy. In parallel to the political history of popular liberalism, this chapter traces a popular history bureaucratic liberalism. Beginning with the history of a local cacique’s rise to the state governorship, it then traces his decline through the gradual reworking of the apparatus and physical spaces of state institutions into places where producers could work around the cacique’s arbitrary exercise of power. This sidestepping of political authority set the stage for local control over the implementation of reform, even after the cacique’s death. Administration substituted for electoral politics, but administration itself became a means of local assertions of self-governance.

Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 505-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL PHILPOTT
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communal Violence ◽  
Religious Actors

This essay takes on the broad question—what explains the political pursuits of religious actors?—by exploring two powerful influences on these pursuits. The first is differentiation, or the degree of autonomy between religious actors and states in their basic authority. The second is political theology, the set of ideas that religious actors hold about political authority and justice. Through global comparisons across religions, regions, and states, it seeks to establish the effect of both influences on two political pursuits in which religion's role is hotly debated today: support for democratization and political violence, including communal violence and terrorism. It concludes with lessons learned commonly from the analysis of both pursuits.

PEACEFUL MEMORIES: REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN KANGWANE, SOUTH AFRICA

Africa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shireen Ally
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Popular Memory

ABSTRACTDespite its manifest, if largely undocumented, histories of menacing violence and perilous politics, the thrust of popular memory in the former apartheid bantustan of KaNgwane insists that it was a peaceful, even apolitical, place. In a contemporary South African memorial culture that idealizes memories of victimization by (and resistance to) apartheid and its political violence, why would some in KaNgwane persistently narrate the past through tropes of peaceful order and disavowals of the political? Are these mnemonic effacements in KaNgwane best conceived of as forms of forgetting? This article challenges such a proposition. First, it recovers the hitherto unrecognized politics and violence in KaNgwane, in part (and paradoxically) out of the very same narratives that deny such histories. Second, it explores the dialectical co-implication of remembering and forgetting, and of memory and history, in KaNgwane's supposed anamnesis. And third, it proposes that the occlusions and assurances of memory in KaNgwane are structured by a localized semiotics in which politics is retrospectively signified by order and restraint, and negated by disorder and revolt. In this ‘memory work’, KaNgwane's past is anaesthetized of violence, and heroism is recovered not from rehearsals of victimization and resistance, but from memories of pacified civility instead.

The relationship between religion and the state: the institution of ‘Commandment of the Faithful’ in Morocco†

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-81
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al Khamlichi
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

The term ‘Amir al-Mou'mineen’ (Commander of the Faithful) and ‘caliph’ were first bestowed on Omar Bin al-Khattab who became the successor of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) two-and-a-half years after he passed away. By virtue of the political and religious connotations of the term, the title conveyed overarching political authority – a kind of absolute power. The notion of Commander of the Faithful facilitated oppression of those who held different views, directly or indirectly, through employing fatawa, that is religious interpretations and edicts, in addition to mobilizing religious followers and devotees. This excess of political power is based on the definition of Imarat al-Mu'mineen (Commandment of the Faithful) or the Caliphate common in religious jurisprudence. This definition was coined by Ibn Khaldoun, and may be translated as: ‘making people abide by the view of Shar (the Law of God in Islam) regarding their temporal and afterlife interests’. Morocco has been no different from the rest of the Islamic world over the centuries, and now two distinct phenomena are apparent. First, the emergence of different groups, each with its own ideology and claims to be defending religion and pursuing its implementation. Such groups consider all other ways of thinking as apostasy that must be eliminated; while juxtaposed to them, there exist intellectual currents calling for the continued separation of religion and the state and its laws. During the past two decades this phenomenon has led to tragic situations in a considerable number of Islamic states, whose prospects now seem very gloomy. Second, a tight regulation of state institutions, together with constitutional guarantees of individual rights and freedoms, can prevent the manipulation of the state in the name of religion, and its use for tyranny and the oppression of individuals and minorities, be it in the name of Commandment of the Faithful or any other term. It seems that Morocco is aware of the power of these two phenomena, especially after it faced social unrest in 1992 and 2001, which almost destroyed its stability.

scholarly journals Investigating the Causes of Political Crises in the Achaemenid Kingdom from Consolidating Power to the Deterioration and Destruction

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Danube River ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
The One ◽  
Ancient Persia ◽  
Military Status

The Achaemenids are one of the most powerful and lasting dynasties in ancient Persia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The territory of this dynasty was very wide, extending from the Sind Valley in India to the Nile in Egypt and the Benghazi area in Libya today and from the Danube River in Europe to Central Asia. In this vast state, many tribes lived in their own customs, and maintained their own state and ethnic culture. In fact, the country's most important characteristic was respect for individual and ethnic freedom and the respect for law and order, and the encouragement of indigenous arts and culture as well as the promotion of commerce and art. This authoritative and widespread government process continued to evolve to a point where the dynasty led to the collapse of this powerful dynasty. In this paper, the authors' efforts are about providing a consistent answer to the question what is the most important reason for the collapse and annihilation of the Achaemenid kingdom? The hypothesis that authors will experiment with the methodology of historical sociology and the use of written and librarian resources will be based on the principle that the causes of tyranny, injustice, racial and religious discrimination, the change of military status and the Achaemenid Kings' nationalist veins were confronted with widespread protests and revolts. The findings of the paper, based on the theory of political instability, David Saunders, confirm that the change in the political regime includes changes in norms and laws, the occurrence of successful coups and the change of military status on the one hand and the challenge to the political regime and government including riots and political rallies, unsuccessful coups and deaths from political violence led to the collapse and decline of the Achaemenid government.

Northern Ireland: People of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic Vote Decisively in Favor of Peace Accord

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 94-98
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Support Group ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Accord ◽  
Past Work ◽  
The Past ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
Brighter Future

Today, I met with ten women and men representing the WAVE Center in Northern Ireland, a support group for those who have been touched by the political violence of the past three decades. Each of these extraordinary individuals, representing both traditions in Northern Ireland, has suffered losing members of their families or being badly wounded themselves. I was inspired by their courage in rejecting violence and working for lasting peace in a land where people are not labeled by religion or national preference; inspired by their vision of a future marked by reconciliation and cooperation. And I will never forget their personal stories of sorrow and suffering, stories which are shared by many people of both communities in Northern Ireland. WAVE proves hatred can be overcome by hope, division can give way to unity, as victims of Northern Ireland's tragic past work together for a brighter future.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document