Chapter 1: Violence and Politics: The Classical Lens -- Chapter 2: Violence and Politics: Critical Alternatives -- Chapter 3: The Distinctiveness of Violence: The Sense of Embodiment -- Chapter 4: The Distinctiveness of Violence: From the Biological to the Social Body -- Chapter 5: The Distinctiveness of Violence: The Military Organization of Social Power -- Chapter 6:The Monopoly of Violence: From Affect Control to Biopower -- Chapter 7: The Legitimacy of Violence -- Chapter 8: The Legality and Justice of Violence -- Conclusion: Violence and Politics: Towards and Emotional Enlightenment
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Representative democracy is considered by many to be in crisis. However, those who look to participatory democracy as an alternative tend to rely on the example of Athens over two thousand years ago. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been numerous experiments at the city level in participation. This book is based on research in six cities, three in Latin America where the framework for the experiments is closer to participatory democracy, and three in the UK, where it is closer to participatory governance. It explores the significance of these different frameworks and also the practice of participation which emerges. The book argues that participation can be the basis for a revitalised democracy if we are prepared to see it as a process of continuous learning and experimentation, based on equal right to take part rather than equal right to consent to representation by others.
This essay reviews the following works: Illegal Drugs, Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America. By Marcelo Bergman. Buenos Aires: Springer International, 2018. Pp. v + 170. $89.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9783319731520. More Money, More Crime: Prosperity and Rising Crime in Latin America. By Marcelo Bergman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 392. $39.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190608774. Tough on Crime: The Rise of Punitive Populism in Latin America. By Michelle D. Bonner. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. Pp. vii + 204. $40.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822945826. Argentina's Missing Bones: Revisiting the History of the Dirty War. By James P. Brennan. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 195. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520297937. Modernity at Gunpoint: Firearms, Politics, and Culture in Mexico and Central America. By Sophie Esch. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 284. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822965381. A History of Political Murder in Latin America: Killing the Messengers of Change. By W. John Green. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015. Pp. v + 360. $26.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781438456645. Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Subnational Structures, Institutions, and Clientelistic Networks. Edited by Tina Hilgers and Laura Macdonald. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. v + 298. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107193178. Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning, and Accountability. By Antonius C. G. M. Robben. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 294. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780812250053. Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Violence in Mexico: The Transition from Felipe Calderón to Enrique Peña Nieto. By Jonathan D. Rosen and Roberto Zepeda. Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. vii + 158. $80.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781498535601.
This paper explores the way violence is simultaneously absent and present in our everyday understanding of politics and the State. It argues that politics does not have to be an arena inherently and unavoidably reliant on the tools of violence. Indeed, politics could be seen as primarily an arena for violence reduction. Social action on violence is one route towards realizing such a goal. However, the ontological assumptions about human violence behind, for instance, the Weberian approach to the modern State remain a conceptual limit to such social action. They have provided an apparently intuitive foundation for why violence and its monopoly must be coupled to our understanding of politics and the State. While there have been philosophical challenges to this, they ultimately fail, it is argued, to provide a focus on violence as a phenomenon with its own distinctions. Social action on violence raises new consciousness about its lived experiences and multiple forms, including state violence. Such action can influence and be influenced by an emergent epistemological leap in the study of violence, made possible by the interdisciplinary potential of new knowledge. Over time, there is a source for a new foundation for the State and Politics, which does not rely on the tools of violence.
