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Shawn Davies
Amelia Hoover Green
Charles Tilly
Richard Stubbs
Nina Tannewald
Noami Egel
Sebastian Rasto
Abbey Steele
Mampilly Z
Revkin
Huang
Violence and Security
3rd April 2023
Agenda
1. Introduction to the course
2. Trends to Political Violence
3. Overview of Paradigms and Approaches
A. Conceptualizing Violence
- Johan Gultang, (1969) provides a compelling way to think about violence and peace.
- 2 types of violence
a. Direct violence: (intentional) Behaviors carried out by an identifiable agent with the intent
to inflict bodily harm
b. Structural violence: Violence as present when humans systematically cannot fulfill their
physical and mental potential. Violence does not require intent and does not require a
clear agent
Ie: tuberculosis, before curing people dying was not structural violence. But once people started
dying from tuberculosis after the cure, he considered that violence.
B. Conceptualizing Peace
Johan Galtung’s (1969) typology of peace:
a. Negative peace: The absence of direct violence
b. Positive peace: A self-sustaining condition that protects the human security of a
population
C. War?
, a. 1000+ battle-related deaths
D. What do we mean by ‘paradigms’?
a. The idea of paradigms comes from Thomas Kuhn (1962)
b. Paradigms or theoretical frameworks are lenses through which we see the world
c. They contain assumptions about:
• The most important actors, as well as their behaviors and motivations.
• What leads to war and violence
• What allows for peace and security
E. Constructivism
a. actors: actors and the interests that drive them are socially constructed
b. Assumptions about agent behavior
- Political actions is shaped by identities and interests
- Who the actor is shapes what they view as appropriate actions
- Conflict and peace are therefor shaped by the content of identities and interests, which
is why norms are so important to social constructivism
F. Instrumentalism
a. Elites as the primarily explanatory variables for the presence/absence of conflict
b. Assumption of instrumentalism
- Elites seek to maximize political power and other material gains and will incite
violence to meet interests
G. Institutionalism
a. Institutionalism is an approach that seeks to understand how political struggles are
mediated by the institutional setting in which they take place.
Readings
1. Organized violence 1989–2022, and the return of conflict between states Shawn Davies
There ́se Pettersson Magnus O ̈ berg
Notes
- Two conflicts, the interstate conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict over
government in Ethiopia, were responsible for about 89% of all recorded battle-related
deaths in 2022, with more than 81,500 and 101,000 fatalities, respectively
- This means that the death toll in state-based conflicts has almost quadrupled since
2020, when we recorded 54,000 battle-related deaths. This increase occurred despite
considerable de-escalation in the two most deadly conflicts in 2021, the conflicts over
government in Afghanistan and Yemen.
- Ethopia: Resembling WW1 fighting, this type of warfare causes massive death tolls, and
it is estimated that at least 100,000 fighters were killed on the battlefield between late
, August and the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement on 2 November, making
it the deadliest state- based conflict-year ever recorded by the UCDP since
events-based data collection began in 1989.
- Africa remained the continent with the highest number of state-based armed conflicts,
as it has for several years. Contrary to the trend in recent years, the increase was not
due to the expansion of IS (Islamic State), which was active in one less conflict in 2022
compared to 2021. Instead it was the al-Qaida-aligned JNIM
- The degradation of IS, coupled with the shifting atten- tion of these governments from
terrorism towards inter- state conflicts, specifically increasingly adversarial relations with
Russia and China, has led to what appear to be the early signs of a declining trend in the
number of internationalized intrastate conflicts.
Non-state conflicts
- the past nine years have witnessed unprecedented levels of non-state violence, as
shown in Figure 4. Violence in Mexico and Syria has been driving this trend.
- In general, non-state conflicts are less lethal than state- based armed conflicts. States
generally have access to more resources and weaponry, and better training, mak- ing
their battles deadlier.
- Likewise, non-state conflicts between formally organized groups, such as rebel groups or
criminal gangs, can be expected to result in more severe encounters than conflicts
between informally organized groups,7
- these two types of non-state conflicts caused roughly similar numbers of deaths. In
2014, however, the number of fatalities stem- ming from fighting between formally
organized groups increased rapidly,
- In addition to Mexico, several other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region
have seen spiraling gang violence in recent years.
- ISIS and congo leading in one sided violenceIt is important to point out that one-sided
violence does not include civilians killed in crossfire, or in indis- criminate types of
warfare, such as shelling and airstrikes, which commonly cause heavy casualties among
the civil- ian population during armed conflict.
Interstate war
, - With the US less willing to act as the world’s police, this order has been increasingly
challenged during the past decade.
Conclusion
- The number of fatalities in organized violence increased sharply in 2022, making it the
most violent year since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the first large-scale inter- state war in 20 years, and the
conflict between Ethiopia and TPLF together resulted in over 180,000 deaths.
- In non-state violence, Mexico continued to dominate the trend, with only one of the ten
most deadly conflicts in 2022 occurring outside the country. While the number of
fatalities in non-state conflict decreased slightly in 2022, the number of active conflicts
increased.
2. How to Read Political Science: A Guide in Four Steps Amelia Hoover Green Drexel
University 2013
Notes
Title, headings, abstract
a. Whether or not there is an abstract, you should also page through the article and write
down the title, the section headings, and any sub-section headings. Voila! You have an
outline
Skim for Signposts
a. list of “signpost” words and phrases. These don’t always mean that something is
important -- and important stuff doesn’t always come with a signpost—but it’s worth
looking for them.
b. Mark, highlight, and circle them
I. Causal questions
- Accounts for, causes, explains, why, or how.
Ii. summary /restatements
- In other words, that is, in short, in brief, I focus on.
Iii. conclusions
- Concludes, thus, therefore. i/we determine
Iiii. assumption
- Assume, assumption, taken for, granted, expectation, based on, supposed
Iiiii. Lit review/counterarguments
- Some scholars, some analysts, others, critics, may object
Iiiiii. Lists/emphasis
- any time you see “firsts”, “seconds”, etc., or bolds and italics
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