PSC 232 - Violence and Politics

Course Units: 1

What is the relationship between violence and politics? Is politics a continuation of violent struggle through other means? Or is there a fundamental difference between the two? What is the relationship between legal order and violence? What is the role of violence in resisting different forms oppression? Can the use of violence ever be morally justifiable? If so, when and why? This political theory course aims to inquire into these challenging questions by studying the theoretical debates on the relationship between violence and politics with a special emphasis on questions related to the relationship between legal order, constitution of the state, and the use of violence both in support of, and in opposition to, the existing order. During the course of the term, we will focus on debates surrounding difference forms of violence in embedded in our legal systems, look at examples of resistance movements, assess different arguments made in defense of nonviolent and violent methods of resistance, analyze different conceptions of civil disobedience, and grapple with the question of how representations of violence affect our judgments about its legitimacy and/or justification.