Violent Societies

Networks of Violence in Civil War and Peace

C. Steenkamp

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780230272033
• eBook ISBN: 9781137290656
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book investigates the relationships between political violence, social violence and economic violence using examples from South Africa, Northern Ireland, Lebanon and Syria. It examines the cultural impact of war and argues that a culture of violence can explain the high levels of violence which are frequently found in post-war societies.

1

Violence

At first glance, Liberia and Guatemala do not have much in common: one is a country with 4 million inhabitants on the west coast of Africa, whilst the other has a population of 15 million and lies in Central America. Due to their different geographical positions and colonial histories, the cultural, historical, political, economic and social differences between them are vast. Yet, they share two important similarities: both have experienced prolonged periods of civil war in recent years and both continue to exhibit alarmingly high levels of violence since the wars have ended.

The Liberian civil wars lasted from 1989–1996 and 1999–2003. During these periods, the respective governments were fighting against militant groups who were based in their own territory, even though there was a significant degree of ‘spill over’ with the war in neighbouring Sierra Leone (Bøås, 2005; Huband, 2013). A total of 250 000 people were killed and an estimated one million people displaced. During both these periods of intense conflict, all parties were involved in the raping and torturing of civilians and committing gross human rights violations. By 2004, one year after the end of the war, the murder rate in Liberia was still extraordinarily high at 19 per 100 000 people – the 35th highest murder rate out of 184 countries at the time (WHO, 2004). The country has a significant illegal economy, with illicit drugs, arms dealing and the diamond trade being important focal points (Wannenburg, 2005). Its geographical position makes it an attractive transhipment point for heroin from Asia and cocaine from South America. By 2008, five years after the wars, the crime rate continued to rise to such an extent that self-defence vigilante groups started patrolling the streets of Monrovia (IRIN, 2008).

The Guatemalan civil war lasted significantly longer than the Liberian conflict: from 1960 to 1996, when it ended through the signing of comprehensive peace accords. It was a war between government forces and leftist rebel groups who enjoyed support from the Mayan and rural poor communities. As in Liberia, large-scale human rights abuses took place and there is evidence of genocide against Mayan communities. Around 200 000 people died, including 40 000–50 000 who ‘disappeared’. By 2004 (eight years after the end of the war), the murder rate in Guatemala remained alarmingly high at 26 per 100 000 inhabitants (WHO, 2004) – at the time, the 15th highest murder rate out of 184 countries. The increase in crime in post-war Guatemala has been well documented, as well as the corresponding increase in vigilante-style lynchings (Benson et al., 2008; Godoy, 2002; Manz, 2008; Preti, 2002).

Both countries had thus experienced a civil war which lasted for a significant period of time (14 years in the case of Liberia and 36 years in Guatemala). After the wars ended, both societies continued to ­display high murder rates and significant levels of other types of ­violence (for example, violence associated with organised crime or vigilantism) even though the levels of political violence decreased dramatically after the signing of peace accords.

This book does not view these similarities as coincidental. The argument here is that the experiences of war and the associated political violence in these two countries (as in others) have created conditions which are also beneficial for other types of violence to occur. It focuses on the symbiosis between different types of violence in the context of war. Furthermore, it looks at how the conditions that fostered this symbiosis in the first place can outlive the war and serve to explain the occurrence of broadly violent societies, despite the absence of political violence.

The following chapters present an analysis to structure this argument. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a conceptual footing for the coming investigation. As such, the chapter starts with a conceptualisation of violence, with particular reference to Johan Galtung’s influential typology of direct, structural and cultural violence. Violence is defined for the purposes of this book; it presents the three types of violence that form the focus of this book: political violence, social violence and economic violence. In the second half of the chapter, a brief overview of the major theories of violence is provided. This places the forthcoming analysis of the linkages between political violence and other types of violence in a broader perspective.

Galtung: From violence to peace

In his seminal article ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Galtung (1969) first makes the distinction between personal (direct) and structural (indirect) violence. He defines violence broadly, as being present in situations where ‘human beings are influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realisations are below their potential realisations’ (Galtung, 1969, p. 168). In this definition of violence, he sees violence as not only having a physical effect (on the individual’s ‘somatic realisations’), but also an effect on the individual’s psychological state (on the individual’s ‘mental realisations’).

The avoidability of this gap between actual and potential realisations is critically important in his conceptualisation of whether ­violence is present or not.

. . . if a person died from tuberculosis in the eighteenth century it would be hard to conceive of this as violence since it might have been quite unavoidable, but if he dies from it today, despite all the medical resources in the world, then violence is present . . .

(Galtung, 1969, p. 168).

In other words, if the gap between potential and actual achievements is avoidable, but still persists, that is indicative of the presence of violence. Violence is that which causes the ‘difference between the potential and the actual, between what could have been and what is’ (Galtung, 1969, p. 168).

This is undeniably a broad definition of violence, and it is deliberately so. It gives the first indication that Galtung would conceptualise violence differently from the conventional definitions of violence, which focus on the infliction of bodily, physical harm. Indeed, he argues that two types of violence could affect the individual’s physical and mental achievements: firstly, personal, direct violence occurs when there is a subject who carries out the violence. This is consistent with most definitions of violence, and indeed, the way violence is conceptualised in this book. This violence may be physical or it could be psychological. It could maim, hurt or kill a person (or object) or it could affect them mentally. Secondly, Galtung puts forward that structural or indirect violence occurs when there is no discernible subject who carries out the violence. The ‘violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently, as unequal life chances’ (Galtung, 1969, p. 171). Herein lies the value of Galtung’s contribution to the conceptualisation of violence: he recognises the damage done to human beings by their existence in conditions of discrimination, social injustice and inequality, and views it as such a serious impediment to human welfare that he defines it as those most heinous of deeds: violence. He correctly points out that more people die from structural violence (such as poverty and preventable diseases) than from direct violence.

Galtung locates violence in a perspective of basic human needs (which will be discussed in more detail below) such as the need for survival, well-being, identity and freedom. He then completes the typology of violence by, some years later, conceptualising a notion of ‘cultural violence’ to complement direct and structural violence (Galtung, 1990). Cultural violence, he argues, exists when cultural elements and artefacts (but not entire cultures) can be used to legitimise direct or structural violence: to make it ‘look or feel right’. This will be illustrated in more detail in chapter 5 on the culture of violence, but for the time being it is worthwhile noting the inter-relationship between the three types of violence. These three types of violence constitute three corners of a triangle which mutually reinforce each other (Confortini, 2006, p. 339) to stimulate social injustice, physical and psychological damage and the cultural justification of these forms of harm.

The greatest practical impact was gained by linking his distinction of types of violence to peace. Negative peace, he argues, is the absence of direct violence. This, however, is a minimalist definition of peace, and the eradication of direct violence is unlikely to last if structural violence is allowed to continue (Galtung, 1969, pp. 183–184; 1985). In order to achieve a lasting peace, in Galtung’s theory, a ­positive peace that aims to eradicate both direct and structural violence is needed. This maximalist conceptualisation of peace had a profound impact on the field of conflict resolution and post-war reconstruction or peacebuilding. What is the emphasis on eradicating the ‘root causes’ of violence (as a goal for peace accords and peacebuilding) other than addressing structural violence in order to prevent direct violence? The notion of a positive peace has been accepted as the goal of reconstruction by the liberal peacebuilding community, with relatively little debate.

Yet, the concept of structural violence has not escaped criticism. Parsons (2007, p. 177) correctly points out that Galtung’s normative framing of violence (it is always undesirable and unjustified) is problematic. It ignores that violence is sometimes necessary in order to achieve social and political justice, as many militants fighting an oppressive state will argue. Violence can be used to bring about peace.

Much of the criticism has been levelled against the prominence of structural violence in the definition of peace. The peace/violence dualism, which lies at the heart of the notions of negative or positive peace, has been accused of simplifying ‘the continuous nature of social conditions to polar opposites’ (Barnett, 2008, p. 77). Peace, says Barnett, is thus defined solely in terms of what it is not – it is not violence – rather than in terms of what it is.

Another concern is that Galtung’s definition of peace is so idealistic (the absence of both direct and structural violence) that it is impossible to obtain. This kind of peace has never existed and probably will never exist. This casts doubt on the ability of his definition of positive peace to act as a realistic indicator of success in post-war reconstruction. If this kind of peace is unattainable – a possibility which Galtung himself acknowledges – its usefulness is surely limited.

Probably the most common criticism against Galtung’s theories of violence and peace is that the definitions of violence and the structural violence which it entails are too broad to be conceptually useful (Bufacchi, 2005, p. 198; Coady, 1986; Keane, 1996, p. 66; Parsons, 2007). These critics argue that his definition of violence makes it indistinguishable from other non-desirable conditions which humans find themselves in, such as ‘inequality’, ‘alienation’ or ‘repression’. In the process, what is unique and important about violence (or peace) becomes obscured, and Galtung stands accused of increasing the ­analytical vagueness that surrounds violence as a concept (Parsons, 2007, p. 176).

Defining violence

Indeed, violence is a contested concept. There are multiple definitions of what constitutes violence, and many of the debates centre around whether violence is intended or not, the relationship between violence and the use of force and the connections between the physical, psychological and structural dimensions of violence. Bufacchi (2005) makes a similar distinction as Galtung by identifying minimalist and comprehensive definitions of violence. The narrower definition of violence sees it as the use of intentional, excessive force, whilst the broader conception associates violence with the violation of people’s rights.

This study adopts a minimalist definition of violence. The validity of some of the criticisms against such a conservative description has to be recognised: yes, it does mean that the psychological dimension of violence (Audi, 1971) associated with domestic violence or genocide is largely unrecognised (although this does become relevant in chapter 5, on the culture of violence). Admittedly, it also means that the most destructive form of violence (structural violence) is not taken into account (Bufacchi, 2005, p. 198).

However, for the purposes of this study, violence is defined as the intentional use of physical force to inflict injury or damage to a person or object. This, albeit limited, conceptualisation of violence is consistent with other definitions in the literature on violence that emphasise the use of force (Geras, 1990; Honderich, 2002, p. 91) and the extent to which violence is deliberate (Parsons, 2007, p. 174; Pogge, 1991; Steger, 2003).1 These are two important aspects of the definition of violence: firstly, it refers to the infliction of destruction and harm which is physical and can therefore be witnessed. It manifests itself in bullet and knife wounds, dead bodies, bomb explosions on busy city streets and pub brawls. It is the result of incidents which could be located in time and place. Secondly, this book’s definition of violence emphasises its intentionality. It is deliberate, instrumental action on behalf of the subject. To be sure, this is a perpetrator-focused definition of ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Violence
• 2 Political Violence and War
• 3 Economic Violence
• 4 Social Violence
• 5 A Culture of Violence
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index