Archive | Vol. 2/2009 | No. 1. Violence beyond the state? : approaches to theory and forms

Zinecker, Heidrun [Publishing editor]

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Content

Scientific article

Editorial / Zinecker, Heidrun [Autor:in] – 2009

Zinecker, Heidrun

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Pages: 1-3

Scientific article

Rente und subnationale Gewalt. Der Beitrag der politischen Ökonomie / Elsenhans, Hartmut [Autor:in] – 2009

Elsenhans, Hartmut

Abstract:

Rents are a basic element of the political economy of underdeveloped economies. They hinder and often block the mechanism of social integration through gainful employment and veto the power of labour, which characterizes capitalist societies and the constitution of citizenship. The impact of rent on political structures is, however, ambiguous. Anomie is only one possible result. Hence the link between raw mate-rial exports and non-state violence is also ambiguous. Many societies, which are characterized by rents, have developed quite powerful mechanisms of keeping internal peace, possibly with limited participation. The conditions of differential impacts of rent on social structures and political behaviour call for an ana-lysis of internal interest mediation. This research is, however, blocked by an ideological commitment of turf-defending German mainstream constructivism in international relations against the consideration of the political implications of rent because of its dual opposition against political economy and sociological realism in the behaviour of social groups.

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Pages: 4-19

Scientific article

Gewalt diesseits, jenseits und am Rande des Staates. Ethnologische Positionen / Zitelmann, Thomas [Autor:in] – 2009

Zitelmann, Thomas

Abstract:

Approaching anthropological research on violence means to approach a field of questions rather than of answers. It offers manifold perspectives on competing interpretations: comparative perspectives on a mul-titude of articulations between war and peace in small societies; on physiological and bodily practices of violence; on cultural, symbolic and cognitive patterns of violence; systemic channels and alternatives for violence derived from conflicts of interests; structural patterns with a perspective on relations between lo-cal violence; intermediate processes of inclusion/exclusion and over-arching political-economic relations. A strong current in recent research relates to the transposition of phenomena of violence formerly obser-ved outside the sphere of “the state” to post-Cold War phenomena now observed under the simultaneous conditions of globalisation and fragmentation of statehood. Since anthropological research on violence derives its particular virtues from fieldwork, fresh ethnographic data and comparison, it breeds continu-ous antagonisms against reductive models. A continuous bone of contention here remains the issue of vio-lence and cultural relativism.

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Pages: 20-40

Scientific article

Violence beyond the State. The International law approach

Bothe, Michael

Abstract:

Traditionally and until today, international law upholds a fundamental difference between the organised use of force by States (war, also law enforcement involving the use of force) and organised violence by non-State actors. Even though the use of force in international relations is prohibited by international law, the conduct of war is nevertheless regulated. Violence by non-State actors is only in certain respects re-strained and only as an exception regulated by international law. Persons other than the members of the armed forces are in many respects engaged in the use of organized force. These non-State actors are not a new phenomenon. International law has reacted to this phenomenon not by abandoning the difference between organized interstate violence and non-State violence but by addressing the problem in a differen-tiated way which, on the one hand, has maintained the privileged position of the use of armed force by State organs, but on the other hand does not simply render non-State violence lawless. It restrains and re-gulates the phenomenon.

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Pages: 41-46

Scientific article

Private political violence and boss-rule in the Philippines

Kreuzer, Peter Michael

Abstract:

Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by political violence. Targeted killings and physical harassment by vigilantes, death squads, private armed groups, para-military militias, the police or members of the armed forces as well as violent competition for politi-cal jobs cost hundreds of lives every year. One central anchor point of this broad range of violent actors and forms are the locally embedded political bosses. (Defective) democracy provides an ideal frame for the continuing competition between various segments of the highly fragmented elite. However, political competition includes a huge number of dirty tricks including the use of violence. The paper shows how the bosses succeeded in controlling most means of political violence employed and were thereby able to advance their interests to an extraordinary extent. Upholding private control over means of violence fur-thered their interests as a political class even though it weakened the state.

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Pages: 47-63

Scientific article

Rethinking state, civil society and citizen participation. the case of the colombian paramilitaries

Hunt, Stacey L.

Abstract:

Throughout Latin America, processes of democratization have coincided with increasing levels of violent crime, the privatization of justice and security, and widespread support for heavy-handed policing. The Colombian paramilitaries are perhaps the most notorious case of brutal violence committed against civil-ians with general support from both state and society. In this article, I explore the surprising amalgam of actors of which the paramilitaries are comprised. I illustrate the way in which their development was shrouded in and facilitated by legal ambiguity, and distinguish their war tactic of targeting the civilians from the guerrilla’s strategy. Finally, I discuss the political success of the paramilitaries in terms of their land and wealth consolidation, their insertion into the political science, and their legal demobilization. I conclude by pointing out several prevalent impediments to our understanding of the paramilitary phe-nomenon, be they silences or biases, and I suggest conceiving of paramilitary violence not merely as havoc wrecked in the margins of the state, but as a central component of contemporary governance.

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Pages: 64-87

Review