{"title":"Introduction to a Special Issue on Political Violence and Terrorism: Political Violence as Contentious Politics","authors":"J. Goodwin","doi":"10.17813/MAIQ.17.1.T401865VH16T3W57","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Five lessons for future research on political violence may be drawn from the articles in this special issue. Researchers should (1) analyze political violence not as a sui generis phenomenon but as one form among others that contentious politics sometimes takes; (2) attempt to determine actors' own reasons for their choice (or rejection) of violent strategies; (3) take the \"conflict situation\" that encompasses the interactions of all the relevant actors (not single states, movements, or networks) as the unit of analysis for explaining collective strategic choices; (4) take the networks in which individuals interact (not single individuals) as the unit of analysis for explaining individuals' strategic choices; and (5) examine actors' decisions to eschew violence as well as their decisions to employ it in order to avoid overgeneralized explanations for the latter.","PeriodicalId":47309,"journal":{"name":"Mobilization","volume":"17 1","pages":"1-5"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2012-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.17813/MAIQ.17.1.T401865VH16T3W57","citationCount":"15","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mobilization","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17813/MAIQ.17.1.T401865VH16T3W57","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 15
Abstract
Five lessons for future research on political violence may be drawn from the articles in this special issue. Researchers should (1) analyze political violence not as a sui generis phenomenon but as one form among others that contentious politics sometimes takes; (2) attempt to determine actors' own reasons for their choice (or rejection) of violent strategies; (3) take the "conflict situation" that encompasses the interactions of all the relevant actors (not single states, movements, or networks) as the unit of analysis for explaining collective strategic choices; (4) take the networks in which individuals interact (not single individuals) as the unit of analysis for explaining individuals' strategic choices; and (5) examine actors' decisions to eschew violence as well as their decisions to employ it in order to avoid overgeneralized explanations for the latter.
期刊介绍:
Mobilization: An International Quarterly is the premier journal of research specializing in social movements, protests, insurgencies, revolutions, and other forms of contentious politics. Mobilization was first published in 1996 to fill the need for a scholarly review of research that focused exclusively with social movements, protest and collective action. Mobilization is fully peer-reviewed and widely indexed. A 2003 study, when Mobilization was published semiannually, showed that its citation index rate was 1.286, which placed it among the top ten sociology journals. Today, Mobilization is published four times a year, in March, June, September, and December. The editorial board is composed of thirty internationally recognized scholars from political science, sociology and social psychology. The goal of Mobilization is to provide a forum for global, scholarly dialogue. It is currently distributed to the top international research libraries and read by the most engaged scholars in the field. We hope that through its wide distribution, different research strategies and theoretical/conceptual approaches will be shared among the global community of social movement scholars, encouraging a collaborative process that will further the development of a cumulative social science.