Locating Political Violence and Violent Conflict: Accidental, Incidental or Instrumental?

Locating Political Violence and Violent Conflict: accidental, incidental or instrumental?

Violence has a corrosive impact on community environments where it most often happens. Acts of violence and violent conflict are nonetheless distinct.  Cases of self-directed violence, where the perpetrator and the victim are the same, suicide for example, are distinct from interpersonal violence within a family or a community. Interpersonal violence within a family or within a community is, in turn, distinct from politically or socially motivated collective violence between larger groups. Hunger strikes or other instances of ‘heroic’ violence are examples of self-directed acts of political violence with a public-political purpose.

Violent conflict at the level of communities large and small tends to occur in response to an absence of rules of cooperation (anarchy) or as a result of a shift in the existing rules of cooperation. Any existing rules of cooperation may constitute a pre-existing ‘system of violence’ where state violence or state systems of control are all encompassing.  A state system of violence is one in which the state uses coercive domination or elite co-option to make overt state directed conflict unthinkable, or unworkable, on the part of controlled and subordinated communities.

A state system of violence is described as a hegemonic control system and is administered in various ways; through legislation for example or endorsed by the military and enabled by economic discrimination, access to education, housing, health, welfare. An increasingly repressive system of violence can change and disrupt the existing rules, provoking a response (violent or non-violent).

If violent conflict is a response to a disruption in the pre-existing rules of cooperation then, the use of violence as a ‘considered response’ to a changing political situation may help us understand a series of broader questions about the changing nature of political violence (see below). Beginning with what motivates political violence, and when and where political violence can be defined as accidental, incidental or instrumental can help us discern the who, the where, the why and the to what end political violence is used by groups and states.

What motivates political violence?

What motivates political violence and how political violence is used by protagonists against groups to harness and to hinder popular energies?

Political violence is used to:

a) harness popular energies to the task of armed struggle, rebellion, revolt and civil war,

b) hinder popular energies to gain or retail control and monopoly over territory and resources.

When can political violence be defined as accidental, incidental or instrumental?

Determining whether violence is accidental, incidental or instrumental addresses the question of violent motivation. Accidental violent conflict happens unexpectedly, by chance. Accidental violence is often attributable to human error, intelligence failure (crossing borders unknowingly) or mechanical malfunctioning (stray missiles). Incidental violence is described as unpredictable violence that creates unintended or inadvertent casualties, is not the same as accidental violence. Where incidental violence occurs, protagonists are not trying to kill civilians, where accidental violence occurs; protagonists are trying not to kill civilians.[i] Where incidental violence ‘can’t be helped,’ instrumental violence ‘might be helpful’ to the strategic aims of the perpetrator. Instrumental violence is used as a deterrent to paralyse the opposition. Defined as the use of disproportionate force in response to asymmetric threats, instrumental violence seeks to control through compliance by using a hammer to crack a nut.  The strategic use of instrumental violence is shaped by institutional constraints and legal considerations.

Who are the protagonists, the conflict entrepreneurs in politically violent conflict?

Targeted killings for example, are premeditated acts of lethal force by states against individuals who are perceived as a threat to the state.  Targeted killings are controversial acts of political violence that blur the traditional distinctions between civilian and combatant. The traditional definitions of combatant and non-combatant, civilian and soldier are increasingly opaque as violent conflict render definitions of intra-state and inter-state war redundant.

For example, violent intra-state conflicts are conventionally defined by the number of ‘battle deaths’ within a given geo-political state territory and differ from inter-state conflicts that include two or more sovereign state actors. Civil wars are intra-state conflicts where one of the protagonists is the incumbent state government, and defined by the number of ‘battle deaths’ over a given period of time. However, battle deaths become increasingly difficult to define in urban conflicts where partisans and population often share the same space.

Where is politically violent conflict most likely to emerge?

Civil wars can become inter-state conflicts as violence spreads and diffuses across state borders. Inter-state borders demarcate one sovereign state territory from another and it is often on the border or the periphery of the state that violent political conflict escalates. Border territory is often the most difficult for the state to control. Permeable state borders are often the places where violent non-state actors, motivated by politics and predation can be found making the most of their geo-political position to peddle arms, contra-ban goods or particular political philosophies. The borderlands of states are the areas the long arm of the law often finds it difficult to reach, and are more likely to be difficult to govern, allowing black economies to flourish in ‘bandit country’.

What is the impact of conflict contagion, where conflict where armed conflict perpetuates further conflict in neighbouring states?

It is these regions where bandits, partisans and profiteering actors proliferate that political violence is most likely to escalate and evolve.  Conflict contagion, where armed conflict perpetuates further conflict in neighbouring states is more likely in areas where new political conflict entrepreneurs can be found. Conflict entrepreneurs defined as actors, driven by political aspiration and economic predation seek the unregulated border hinterlands and use political violence as a mechanism for harnessing local and often regional power.  Incidental and instrumental violence is employed to mobilise local cross-border communities to meet the needs of these new actors. It is at the borders of states and at the threshold of political violence that the answers as to what motivates new waves and phases of politically violent conflict might be best examined and the following questions best addressed.

Differentiating between types of political violence

• What motivates political violence?
• When can political violence be defined as accidental, incidental or instrumental?
• Who are the protagonists, the conflict entrepreneurs in politically violent conflict?
• Where is politically violent conflict most likely to emerge?
• What is the impact of conflict contagion, where armed conflict perpetuates further conflict in neighbouring states?
• What is the aim of political violence to exterminate or control groups through compliance, through terror, or polarisation, intimidation, demoralisation, or radicalisation?
• If political violence is a considered response to a change in the rules of cooperation, then what accounts for indiscriminate violence?

How, if at all, is political violence more effective when selective? (Che Guevara)

• To what extent can we suggest that political violence is ‘propaganda by deed’? (Kropotkin)
• When and in what circumstance is political violence used to ‘obtain a hearing in moderation? (William O’Brien).
• When is violence initiated?
• When, if ever, is violence the last resort in instances where the ‘good is greater than the cost’?
• When can protagonists argue the ‘legitimate authority’ to use violence?
• Does the way the state responds to a violent political challenge shape the nature of that challenge?
• How, if at all, is the law equipped to deal with political violence?
• To what extent is Cicero’s observation “When war begins law falls silent” correct?
• Are there ‘just laws’ and right intention to gain or maintain a monopoly of violence by state or non-state actors?
• Are targeted assassinations/killings selective or indiscriminate? (Derschowitz).
• Why do ‘twenty first century conflicts’ rarely produce victors or vanquished?
• Why are winners and losers increasingly replaced by inclusive bargains, deals, arrangements and agreements?