Politics of conflict
Contents
Class 1- violence and/or power ......................................................................................................................................... 2
Class 2: Violence, power and discipline ............................................................................................................................ 6
Class 3: Gender and violence .......................................................................................................................................... 11
I- Part 1 - class Jeroen ............................................................................................................................................. 11
II- Part 2 – struggling women in the face of Tokhang .............................................................................................. 15
Class 4: Violence, modernity and ideology ..................................................................................................................... 17
Class 5: Sovereignty, necropolitics and violence ............................................................................................................. 21
Class 6: The (post)colony and political violence.............................................................................................................. 24
Class 7: Violent Democracies + Horizontal Inequalities: current debates in conflict analysis ........................................ 29
Class 8 & 9: Post-conflict and reintegration: lessons from Columbia ............................................................................. 38
I- Guest lecture filmmaker...................................................................................................................................... 38
II- Class Jeroen ......................................................................................................................................................... 39
Class 10: A case for non-violence? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………41
1
,Class 1- violence and/or power
I- Practicalities
a) What is the course about?
• Discussion on relationship between conflict, violence, democracy, (post)colonialism, genocide…
• Start from broader analytical discussions, rather than case-studies
• Discussions that (hopefully) are inspiring to other courses due to their more general/ conceptual nature
b) Competences
• Understand what the course material is about
• Connect and compare different authors, debates, arguments… -try to think with authors
• To formulate a grounded critical assessment in relation to the course material
• Creatively rework these authors, debates, arguments…
• To put the course material in a larger intellectual perspective
II- Class
2 prominent thinkers on the role of violence and politics and the role that violence has on politics:
❖ Hannah Arendt
a) Context
• Jewish philosopher who flew fascism and went to the USA – a lot of her writing is thinking about
what has happened globally and thinks about violence and liberty, freedom, democracy,…
o Fascism, totalitarianism, imperialism
• Main context at the time: increasing violence amongst progressive circles she identifies herself with &
romanisation of violence as fundamental strategy for real progressive reform
o Tries to understand power in a different way and also violence in a diff way – says to be careful and not
to expect too much of the emancipatory quality of violence
• Main claim in the text: differentiate politics with violence, challenging all the thinkers that saw violence as being
an inevitable element in politics power
b) Main arguments (4)
1) Power can never be equated with violence
• we should not equated violence with power, these are two fundamental different things
• for her violence is an instrument, a tool that has no capacity of its own
o power has the capacity on its own, which is often linked to convincing ppl, talking with each other, acting
political, being in numbers
o a group of ppl can be powerful when using arms but still they need to be convinced that using these
instruments is useful for a certain purpose
‘Where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use. Hence obedience is not determined by
commands but by opinion, and, of course, by the number of those who share it. Everything depends upon the power
behind the violence’
o Importance of belief and legitimacy where power is located
o For her politics is not about rule/obedience (slave/master) relationship but about convincing people of a
cause/ of change
• It’s an abstract idea but the differentiation she makes is useful and constructive
2
, ‘Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group
keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is “in power” we actually refer to his being empowered by a
certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with
(…), disappears,“his power” also vanishes’
o Power is a relational thing, not an inherent capacity
o You are in power if you convince other people, bcs ppl consider you as a legitimate leader
2) Violence as a political strategy: danger that violence as means becomes an end in itself
• Violence is about certain instruments, it’s not a political strategy as such, it’s about material things (having a gun)
• We use violence to be liberated, to be free at a later stage (means to a very progressive end) BUT be careful,
danger of means end false discussion
o It is impossible to totally differentiate the means to its end and there is always a danger that the means
(violence) will take over the end →there are diff historical examples about this
‘If goals are not achieved rapidly, the result will not merely be defeat but the introduction of the practice of violence
into the whole body politic. Action is irreversible, and a return to the status quo in case of defeat is always unlikely.’
• she takes position against ppl saying that violence is together with a political strategy, she thinks it’s two different
world
3) power is located within the people/deliberation/consensus
• power lies in numbers (act united)
‘What makes man a political being is his faculty to act. It enables him to get together with his peers, to act in concert,
and to reach out for goals and enterprises which would never enter his mind, let alone the desires of his heart, had he
not been given this gift—to embark upon something new.’
• Power is located with the people/ deliberation/ consensus… (not with domination!)
• Due to the unpredictability of political action, impossibility of means (violence!) – end (liberty!) thinking
• Acting political can never be a means towards something else, acting political is the realm of freedom
o You don’t have to do politics to be liberated but being political & acting political is being free as such
‘… the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same boundlessness, because one deed,
and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation’ (p. 190) Arendt: ‘The human condition’ (1958)
o Action provokes reaction in an infinite and constantly evolving web
o Importance of group dynamic and always the most unexpected things can happen from it but since it’s
unexpected it’s also difficult to have this mechanical means-end discussion
▪ Life and the world is more complicated than that!
4) violence has no constructive capacity
• it can destroy and sometimes construction might be needed but don’t expect too much of the capacity of
violence
o violence can destroy things but has limited construct capacity
‘Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the
most instant and perfect obedience. What can never grow out of it is power.’
• violence as something inherently instrumental:
‘Power is indeed of the essence of all government, but violence is not. Violence is by nature instrumental; like
all means, it always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues’
3
, • Violence and/or Politics? Wider debate in political theory, with A positioning herself against a long tradition of
a) equating politics with dominance/rule (criticised this)
a. linked to weber, Machiavelli,… - definition of the state, legitimate use of violence
b) pointing at the inevitably of violence for political change
a. she doesn’t say no but she warns for it
→In her writing, she refers to Fanon
❖ Fanon
a) Context
• intellectual activities with a proactive engagement in post-colonialism
• Basic point: colonialism is by definition a violent enterprise → not having violence is unthinkable
o Violence as an inevitable component – colonialism is by definition violent so anti-colonial struggle is too
o Anti-colonial struggle is acting as a mirror of what is being used in colonialism
• Colonization creating two separate mental worlds: that of the colonizer and that of the colonized; Fanon: ‘The
colonial world is a Manichaean world’ (dichotomous thinking: adversary and other group)
o Link with other classes where we talk about labelling an adversary – good vs bad, no in between
• This spatial compartmentalization is a strategy of dehumanizing the colonized
• Fierce critique on the ‘colonized intellectuals’ collaborating with the colonizers, attempting to bridge this divided
world and believing in the possibility of a compromise
• Colonialism as an inherently violent enterprise
o Colonialism is a violent enterprise but it has an effect on the view of people + material component
(=space)
b) Main arguments
1. Violence as inevitable in (anti-colonial) struggle (means towards an end)
• Violence is inherent to colonization, hence decolonization is by definition a violent process
• An analysis of an inevitable confrontation where a negotiated settlement is impossible; in the real world: you
have to choose sides and there are only 2 sides to choose from
• A particular political strategy of decolonization; to turn this ‘atmospheric violence’ into violence directed at the
colonial project
• About confrontation, a battle – physical violece key to liberation
‘… between the oppressors and the oppressed, force is the only solution’
2. Circular nature of violence (it is everywhere)
• The violence of the colonizer instigates violence by the oppressed
• Sartre: → ‘… at first, the only violence they understand is the colonists’s, and then their own, reflecting back at us
like our reflection bouncing back at us from a mirror’
• Violence is something/a force we have in our body – in colonialism there was a frustration within their bodies
that had to erupt, go and inspire other people (movement of this energy)
o When we think about violence, it’s a bothering thing to feel like that
3. The embodied quality of violence
• It is a force, an energy that needs to be released – release towards a progressive anti- colonial struggle that in the
end will result in a world with freedom, equality, respect (A would say be careful of mechanical mean of ends)
‘an aggressiveness sedimented in muscles’; ‘an aggressiveness, tension, energy… that ultimately must be channeled’
4. Violence as a process of ‘realization’ and ‘liberation’
• Fanon sees a personal liberation in the personal use of violence (most diff from Arendt)
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