Contemporary Political Violence and its Legitimation

The legitimation of contemporary political violence is central to its understanding. Whereas in earlier times, self or group interest narrowly defined, provided, in most cases, sufficient justification, in recent times demand has grown for loftier ones. This is not to suggest that crusades and other religious wars of the past could be explained by material interest or conflict over scarce resources, although the latter might have aggravated them in some instances. It has been since the beginning of the past century that voluminous and elaborate ideological justifications and rationalizations became central to the initiation and infliction of political violence—preceding, accompanying, or following it. Several circumstances seem to account for this development. One is the actual presence of ideological motivation and fervor spurring on political conflicts; the second is the emergence of political propaganda and the mass media of communications that disseminates it. Further explanation may be found in the growing numbers who participate in these conflicts either as conscripts in huge military forces or members of large and highly specialized political police forces which carry out the repression that often culminates in violence. Arguably when large numbers of people replace the far smaller, more selectively recruited groups of the past charged with these activities, the need for motivating these multitudes increases. Members of mass conscript armies or large police forces, and the public at large, need to be persuaded that the political violence is legitimated by some higher purpose, rather than merely by individual or group interest. More generally speaking political–ideological legitimation of violence might have also has increased as replacement of the divisive religious convictions which in pre-modern times often motivated combatants in various conflicts. But again this is not to argue that such religious motives became insignificant in our times as made clear by the rise of violence motivated by Islamic fundamentalism. As to the substance of the political–ideological currents animating and justifying violent conflicts in more recent times, it is nationalism and the attempts to recast societies in some utopian mold that are the most important. Nationalistic and ethnic hostilities are, of course frequently related. The third major force, in recent years, has been the fundamentalist Islamic religious-political beliefs providing powerful motivation and legitimation for terroristic political violence that often entails self-destruction. A common thread running through the legitimation of the major types of political violence—war, civil war, revolution, repression and decentralized terror—is an extended conception of collective self-defense. The Nazis felt mortally threatened by Jews and were convinced that only their complete eradication would make them secure. Communist regimes created and made much use of the mythical figure of the omnipresent and vicious Enemy of many social–political incarnations: members (sometimes even descendants) of the former ruling classes, priests and ministers; party politicians of parties no longer in existence; kulaks (i.e. more prosperous peasants, or any peasant who hired labor), as well as all those who expressed, or were thought of capable of expressing critical sentiments of the authorities and any of their policies. Communist regimes endlessly claimed being encircled, besieged, and potentially subverted by increasingly desperate, and dangerous adversaries at home and abroad; it was imperative to engage in “self-defense” of an exceptionally extended and aggressive nature against all those actually Soc (2009) 46:267–274 DOI 10.1007/s12115-009-9204-y