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Feminist politics is an exemplar of political realism, argues Elizabeth Frazer, in that it seeks to represent those who might be left out of the theoretical frameworks or empirical experiments of traditional social sciences. This is why, she says, realistic politics must focus on the margins as much as the centres of power.

This article explores feminist contentions over pacifism and non-violence in the context of the Greenham Common Peace Camp in the 1980s and later developments of feminist Just War Theory. We argue that Sara Ruddick's work puts feminist pacifism, its radical feminist critics and feminist just war theory equally into question. Although Ruddick does not resolve the contestations within feminism over peace, violence and the questions of war, she offers a productive way of holding the tension between them. In our judgment, her work is helpful not only for developing a feminist political response to the threats and temptations of violent strategies but also for thinking through the question of the relation between violence and politics as such.

This article seeks to problematise the dominant understandings of the relationship between politics and violence in political theory. Liberal political theory identifies politics with the pacified arena of the modern state; although violence may sometimes be an instrument for the pursuit of political goals, politics is conceptualised as the ongoing non-violent negotiation of competing rights and interests, and the overall aim of liberalism is to remove violence from the political process. Radical critics deny liberalism's promise to deliver a divorce between politics and violence, but they often share liberalism's premise that politics and violence are distinct in principle, and ought to be so in practice, developing a vision of politics beyond violence. In contrast, the theory of politics and violence that can be read in the work of Machiavelli, Clausewitz and Weber understands politics as immanently connected to violence. Neither politics nor violence is reducible to a singular logic. A distinctively political violence constitutes and polices political distinctions. In doing this political violence is bound up with its own limitations – it is one medium for the construction of a world which, according to these three thinkers, it does not and cannot fully control. Liberal and radical thinkers tend to treat Machiavelli, Clausewitz and Weber in their theory of political power as outdated or, worse, as celebrating the role of violence in politics. In our interpretation, however, their work has the virtue of demonstrating the paradoxes of political action, in particular the complex relationship between politics and violence which is neither one of naturalistic necessity nor pure strategy or instrumentality, but is embedded in politics as statecraft.

Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II includes a number of scenes representing the Kent rebellion of 1450, led by Jack Cade. In these, we argue, Shakespeare explores the ways in which claims to legitimate rule are often secured through performances of word, deed and gesture. We examine some of the concerns about drama expressed by political theorists alongside some of the techniques of political dramatists, and argue that a reason for the often tense relationship between drama and politics is this power of the former to make visible the aesthetic and theatrical aspects of the latter. The brilliance of Shakespeare's representation of Cade, we argue, lies in the way in which it holds up the performance of sovereignty for public scrutiny and assessment. Adapted from the source document.

Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben both consider the question of whether there can be politics without violence, offering contrasting responses. In the case of Agamben, the remnant (that which remains) is disruptive and destabilising of present institutions; in the case of Derrida the revenant, the spectre, promises a future that is open. This reading of the two theories suggests that Derrida's response to the question of politics and violence is more persuasive than Agamben's. But the abstraction of his argument, like the tensions and contradictions in Agamben's, means that we are not hereby furnished with the resources to think politically about violence. Adapted from the source document.

Concepts and theory: political sociology and European study / S. Duchesne, E. Frazer, F. Haegel and V. Van Ingelgom -- National frames: reactions to a multi-level world / F. Haegel -- Social gap: the double meaning of 'overlooking' / S. Duchesne -- When ambivalence meets indifference / V. Van Ingelgom -- Representation and legitimation / E. Frazer and V. Van Ingelgom -- Reflections on design and implementation / S. Duchesne, E. Frazer, A.-P. Frognier, G. Garcia, F. Haegel, and V. Van Ingelgom -- Conclusion: citizens talking about Europe / S. Duchesne, E. Frazer, F. Haegel and V. Van Ingelgom -- Post script: searching for the grail / A.-P. Frognier