Week 16: Political Change: Development, Violence, Terrorism and Revolution

Violence is one of the most elusive and most difficult concepts in the social sciences. Since the late 1960s there has been a considerable increase in violence in Western industrialized countries, counter to the long-term trend, and consequently the issue of violence has become the subject of much consideration, reflected in countless articles, essays and books. Yet the controversial questions remain unresolved, concerning an appropriate definition, substantive differentiation, sociopolitical assessment, and moral evaluation of violence. Even popular encyclopedias present a multitude of controversial interpretations of the phenomenon, and divergent meanings of the concept, and not least present the concept of violence in a range of collocations and compounds (Gewaltverhältnisse—relations of violence; Gewaltordnung—system based on violence; Gewaltmonopol—monopoly of violence; Gewaltenteilung—separation of powers, etc.). Violence is clearly an extremely complex phenomenon involving major ambiguity between the destruction and the creation of order. 

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