Changing Characteristics Of Political Violence In Modern Times

History of Political Violence

Question:

How has Political Violence Changed through History?

Politics has been related to violence since time immemorial. Many kingdoms have been established on the basis of political propaganda which contained basic ingredient of violence. Political violence mainly revolves around waging Wars for political gains and to stay in power. It is the most immaculate and tested instrument to establish political superiority. In the following essay discussion on the changing characteristics of political violence show history will be done (Della Porta, 2014). The changing trend of political violence can be seen through the lens of modernization democratization globalization and last but not the least on the basis of religion. These innuendos have seen it through the entire evolution of political violence through time. History has witnessed many wars which were started due to political reasons but ended up in unimaginable state of violence and chaos.

So many prominent examples of political violence can be illustrated by the event of Holocaust before Second World War Holy crusades which was based purely on religious causes and their political propaganda. But in the modern world the political propaganda of violence has shifted to economic gains from political and administrative superiority which was the main reason of violence in the mediaeval era (Lakitsch, 2015).The following essay comprises of the change in the nature of political violence and its evolution through the political ambitions of modern day rulers. The essay discussion also contains the modern definition of political violence and the difference between previous agendas and the new reasons. The following essay is a comprehensive discussion on political violence.

Starting from the mediaeval era modernization has been a cause of concern for the people in power who had complete control over the resources and the machinery. Modernization or thought and opportunities made people think on modern lines and most importantly about themselves and their overall growth and development (Amodio et al., 2017). This made the capitalists weak as their hold on the people started to loosen because people who were their peasants broke the shackles of bonded labor and started to earn for their own. This caused a political turmoil in that era which forced the capitalists to oppress and suppress the modernization of mentality and thought through the method of violence. During the industrial revolution and a decade after that there were many cases of execution and burning of villages in the entire Europe (Anthony & Robison, 2017). This was the direct effect of modernization which caused political violence. Modernization caused enhancement of educational practices among the people who were previously ignorant and uneducated about the political system in which they were living. Education gave them the seat at the table which belonged to their Masters (Antonello, 2017). Realization of the level of oppression gave birth to the need of radical change which was done through violent rebellions. It was an after effect of political violence which was the root cause of these modern day revolts. Formation of political parties and groups for the purpose of fighting against the system gave rise to the system of violence from both sides which were unilateral before. There were many sentiments which developed in the advent of these events such as nationalization and secularization (Bauer et al., 2017).

Changing Trends of Political Violence through Modernization, Democratization, Globalization, and Religion

As stated above violence has always been the brainchild of politics and in some way it is a requirement to fulfill political ambitions of people and of a nation taken collectively. In the early 20th century the two world wars which took place, because of the huge political ambitions of powerful nations and there rulers. The reason of occurrence of the First World War was territorial Supremacy and administrative authority over land (Cummings et al. 2017). The amount of violence which took place during the time of First World War was something which was not witness before in history. The consequences of War are as always destruction and chaos with loss of lives and money. Some parties became victorious and some countries what destroyed and doomed due to the prolonged violence. The loss of infrastructure and economy for many countries usually made their people rebellious and made another war imminent (Diprose, 2017). The effect of political violence caused during the First World War resulted in the occurrence of the Second World War which was more brutal and inhuman than the former one. Violence makes innocent people rebellious as they are left with no choice then to avenge their loss. To make any revolt successful political base is required to move people and to convince them for the cause. It is very ironical but people tend to risk their lives for the political ambitions of few misguided leaders. There are many tools with which these political innuendos and induced in the minds of the masses who get easily seduced to the charm and charisma of violence (Gutiérrez-Sanín et al., 2017).

Violence has been the cause of concern for the society since ancient times. There have been changed in trends in the types of violence in which political violence is considered to be the most detrimental factor and the most efficient one to create chaotic situations (Bell, 2017). Wars and events of violence in ancient history and even in the mediaeval history assorted in the pages of history for which the reasons were political dominance, occupation of territory, geographical superiority of land and its resources, ethnic and cultural diversity of people, ambition of the rulers and vague personal reasons. But as the modernization took place the trend of political violence shifted from territorial supremacy towards economic and political ambitions which were believe to be more realistic and far-fetched then just having the command over resources (Lynch & Argomaniz, 2017).Due to the political violence under development of many countries in many parts of the world have happened. But when the contemporary world is taken into consideration it has been observed that the incidences of political violence have been decreased since the Second World War. After the cold war these incidents of political violence which happened from time to time also fell sharply. The entire world is looking towards peace and conflict resolving methods for which many International organizations have been set up who are the guardians and protectors of peace and to avoid and mitigate political violence across the world (McCleery & Edwards, 2017).When compared to the number of incidences political violence in ancient and mediaeval history it is observed that in the contemporary world the reasons and the number of incidences have changed quite a lot. But one thing stays common which is the reason of economic superiority. In the older times political violence was an instrument of rich and capable countries who maintained their own Armies to show their dominance of power and their political ambitions (Rak, 2017). Violence was done to suppress rebellions and Conquer territories. But on the contrary in the contemporary world political violence has become a tool of the weakened Nations full ac in resources man artillery. The main reasons of violence in these countries are the resources of survival such as food water oil and environmental factors.

Modern Definition of Political Violence

It has been observed that not only the kind of conflicts but also the number of incidences have declined after the Second World War (Reimann, 2017). Political violence incidents which were termed as extra systemic which was originally the violent struggles of decolonization became a thing of the 1970s. Recently it has been observed that the interstate conflicts and its incidents have drastically reduced. On the contrary the number of civil conflicts which became an international political violence incident has grown since the unfortunate event of 9/11. In recent years all the political violence incidents have been internationalized (Diprose, 2017).Previously political violence was executed through proxy Wars conflict traps and other instruments of violence which were centralized and were monitored through capable government institutions. All these reasons were somewhat politically?motivated and had political and economic implications (Sageman, 2017). But after the end of cold war era, terrorism and extremism has taken the space of older instruments of political violence. Terrorism in the name of religious causes had been in vogue since last two decades which had caused unfathomable loss of life and infrastructure all around the globe.

Trends of political violence and the types of conflicts which can be distinguished by forms after ideological base and the nature of mobilization, characteristics of warfare and the length of their external influence have changed with the time(Cummings et al., 2017).Some of these political violence execution methods have been illustrated below which have changed their nature through history.

Proxy Wars: During the time of cold war era the eastern and the western countries favored many nations in which some fought due to the conflicts and had Advisors arms and ammunitions and funds. These small and big countries aimed to acquire a particular country to have it on their side. Some of the examples can be seen in the wars of Central America, Afghanistan, Mozambique and Vietnam (Della Porta, 2014). Wars in some of these countries ended with the cold war but in countries like Afghanistan political violence continued and gained a shape of its own. Proxy conflicts of new variety came into existence as a war against the terrorist organizations. It can be exemplified by the US counter insurgency operations which took place in the Muslim countries like Philippines (Lakitsch, 2015). These proxy conflicts were originally started to suppress the secessionist Muslim terrorist organizations and proxy Nations like Taliban in Pakistan.

Military Interventions: Military intervention was the most basic and prominent tool for political violence execution in previous days. But after the cold war era this method of political intervention has only been used frequently by the western countries like US. Military intervention in Afghanistan and in Iraq are some of the examples of political violence execution done by a military superpower to fulfill its own political and economic ambitions (Anthony & Robison, 2017).One example of such military intervention can be observed in Cambodia where Vietnam invaded the country for political and strategic reasons.

Decline of Political Violence after the Second World War

Ideological Wars: Political wars which are based on ideological grounds and had Revolutionary impact over the citizens of a country targeted to disturb the peace of a nation and to overturn the order which is previously established. Some of these ideological wars can be exemplified by the Cambodian conflict, war in Peru, Maoist rebellion in Nepal and same type of conflict in Syria which was to establish Sharia law (Antonello, 2017).

Wars for Independence: Wars which were waged for independence of a nation and autonomy is the most naive form of political violence. With the advent of modernization many country in the world which were a military superpower fought for their Independence and establishment of democracy and republicanism. Although the violence was politically motivated it was for the greater good of the country (Amodio et al., 2017).Some examples of the countries where war for independence was fought Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Spain, Philippines, South Sudan and Nigeria.

Wars for Political Supremacy: Wars based on the reason of retaining a political supremacy and to acquire it has been political violence tool which has affected many specific cultures, religions and ethnicity. Some of these kinds of wars had started from small conflict between coalition groups and ethnic groups which took shape of huge wars in later days (Gutiérrez-Sanín et al., 2017).Countries which have experienced these kinds of wars are Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Northern Ireland.

Political violence has some motivational factors which drives it towards execution. Some of the factors are discussed below.

Group Motivation

Political violence is different from criminal violence which induced buy a common sentiment of people who are in power and who seek authoritative control over a particular region. People of that specific area are grouped on the basis of ethnicity or religion or a common sentiment of a country. Then in that case the political motives of these groups are stated as group motives political violence (Rak, 2017). Since each group is categorized ant responds to a common banner the political conflict is against a common enemy which makes people politically connected to each other and to Resort to violent means to gain Independence and liberation. Some examples of these group motivations as a reason of political violence were observed in the countries of Bosnia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Philippines, Burundi and Northern Ireland (Sageman, 2017).

Private Motivation

People who fight for their personal and private gains and ambitions have been mostly observed to have economic reasons to practice political violence. Terrorism is the best example of this kind of political violence in which people are categorized who have common economic or religious interest (Altier et al., 2013). In this type of political violence young and uneducated man are hired as mercenaries and they are deployed as soldiers seek an opportunity to loot and plunder some specific resource rich areas to gain monetary benefits by selling the loot. This kind of political violence has been observed in countries where there is lack of employment opportunities, natural resources and low possibilities of income (Antonello, 2017). The entire Central African region is affected by this kind of political violence where basic needs of sustainability such as food and water are in a very limited quantity.

Rise of Terrorism as a New Form of Political Violence

Failure of Social Contract

Another reason of political violence can be stated as the failure of social machinery of a country. People who have grievances to the government offer country and have ill thoughts for its political machinery Resort to violent means to and the reign of that government (Della Porta, 2014). Dictatorship is the most common type of government where this kind of political violence is seen to happen.

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded from the above discussion that political violence has been a part and parcel of the international and world affairs which can be observed throughout history. Every era has been affected by the notion of political violence no matter what the reason was for the execution of this instrument of dominance. The reasons of political violence vary through time and place across the world as the situations and scenarios differed. Leaders of particular countries having different status in the world have resorted to different methods of political violence as they seemed convenient and so necessary. In the contemporary world the nature of political violence and its reasons have modified from the previous ones but the main theme remains the same as the establishments of political agendas are still there. From the above discussion it can be concluded that how the modernization has changed the status of political violence and what were the factors which proved to be detrimental to the peace and stability of the respective country where political violence was resorted to. With changing time the instruments of political violence also upgraded itself from just being proxy Wars to military interventions, being ideologically motivated which sometimes led to wars of independence. In recent years the motivational factor of political violence has evolved to be motivated by group, motivated by individual ambitions and failure of state machinery. It can be summed up that political violence is an unending phenomenon.

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