Why do some protest groups use violence in the context of collective action - Essay Example

? Why do some protest groups use violence in the context of collective action? Introduction Contentious politics represents the utilization of disruptive techniques to deliver a political point, or alter government policy. Some of the techniques constitute actions that disturb the normal activities of the society such as riot, demonstrations, civil disobedience, or even insurrection; hence, social movements frequently engage in contentious politics. Social change may render certain social groups to flourish or become powerful, and politically relevant; nevertheless, the availability of political opportunities does not automatically and immediately yield to heightened protest (Tarrow 1998, p.16). Collective action mainly focuses wholly on the behaviour and/or the authenticity of certain individuals. Collective identity draws from the recognition and the establishment of connectedness, which heralds a sense of common purpose and commitment to a certain cause. Social protests performances mainly emerge from marginalized peoples and oppositional struggles, whereby individuals utilize protests to counter hegemonic strategic via which underrepresented groups challenge the dominant social order and source of change. The representational apparatus provided by social protests serves to reinforce, re-articulate, and re-imagine the objectives of both social and political resistance (Oliver 1993, p.271). Traditional explanations to why individuals engage in political violence emphasize that deprivation, characteristically in the form of economic inequality generates grievances and discontent that trigger rebellion and social revolution (McCarthy and Zald 1977, p.1212). The paper explores why some protest groups utilize violence within the context of collective action. Background The contentious politics that were prominent in the 1960s and early 1970s heralded fresh energy to a subject that, for an extended period, has dominated scholarly and political legitimacy. In the 1970s, two prominent paradigms emerged from the welter of studies triggered by the disorderly politics of the 1960s, namely: the resource mobilization (RM) approach to social movement organizations within the US and the new social movement (NSM) approach within Western Europe (Thompson 1971, p.76). Historically, breakdown theory was the dominant theory that guided sociological study of collective action; nevertheless, this theory as deemed to be increasingly incapable of accounting for the contemporaneous events (Useem 1998, p.215; Aminzade et al. 2001, p.12). Resource mobilization theory replaced breakdown theory as the dominant paradigm. Both resource mobilization and breakdown theories explain diverse forms of phenomena, and both are pertinent in helping account for the full range of forms of collective action (Goodwin and Jasper 2009, p.10). Use of Violence in the Context of Collective Action Collective action represents actions by group members directed at enhancing the conditions of the group as a unit such as petitions, demonstrations, riots, boycotts, and sit-ins. There are numerous explanations to collective action such as relative deprivation, intergroup, social identity, intergroup emotion, and resource mobilization theories. Classical theories indicate that people mostly protests to express their grievances emanating from frustration, relative deprivation, or perceived injustice. Scholars of social movements have highlighted that efficacy, opportunities, and resources can be utilized to predict protest participation (Tilly 2008, p.8). Politics within networks enhance efficacy and transform individual grievances into shared grievances and group-based anger that yields protest participation. At the heart of social movement phenomena is the protest event, whereby protest events are in numerous ways the front line of action within social movements. It is essential to recognize that social protests represent a collective action that is not synonymous with collective behaviours such as riots. Collection action, as a representation of social action, is a behaviour that involves: (a) meaningful through processes; (b) deliberative cognitions emanating from strategies for action derived from cultural repertoire of contention; and, (c) the purposive and projective performance of the actor’s consciousness (Porta and Diani 2006, p.239). Grievance theories emphasize the role that relative deprivation theory plays in which feelings of relative deprivation emanating from comparison of one’s situation with a standard. Individuals who experience personal deprivation and group deprivation are the most highly motivated to take to the streets. At the centre of every protest are grievances emanating from the experience of illegitimate inequality, feelings of relative deprivation, moral indignation, and feelings of injustice regarding the state of affairs, or an abruptly imposed grievance (Seferiades and Johnston 2012, p.69). Efficacy-theory refers to individual’s expectations detailing that it is possible to alter conditions or policies through policy. In order for the perception of the potential for change to gain ground, individuals need to perceive the group as capable of uniting and fighting for the issue in question and ought to perceive the political context as receptive to the assertions made by their group. Numerous studies have demonstrated that feelings of efficacy significantly correlate with participation in protests. Individuals are highly likely to engage in movement activities when they believe this will aid to redress their grievance at admissible costs (Snow et al. 2010, p.14). Previously, protests were considered to be an undemocratic intrusion into politics; nevertheless, popular movements witnessed in 1960s made protests be viewed as critical adjunct to democratic politics and a prominent factor in the transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes. The political process synthesis incorporates political opportunities, framing, and mobilization structures representing an integrated account of the origins of social protest. The right to assemble express grievances, and demand solutions to social problems can be regarded as a cornerstone of democratic societies; nevertheless, violence represents processes of social change. Social movements can be regarded as organized and relatively continuous collective challenges to authority, or resistance to such challenges that mainly employ extra-institutional pathways to generate change within human societies. Since they are challenges to authority, social movements mainly emerge from outside formal institutional channels and, while diverse movements may attract the support from individuals in positions of power, majority of initiators and leaders of social movements mainly do not hold such positions (Oliver, Cadena-Roa and Strawn 2003, p.213). Collective violence represents interactive episodes in which physical damage may be inflicted upon individuals by at least two perpetrators, which possess some level of coordination within the performance of damaging acts. Violence, in this case, can be symbolic or structural and mirror the manner in which individuals conceive violence and its emergence. This draws from the fact that while a majority of instances in which police employ excessive force, in most cases the police safeguard protesters from crowds or counter protesters, and may not interact violently with protesters. Research on protest has largely framed the debate as unidirectional in which violent repression against protesters may be employed to safeguard the interests of the state. Social movement scholars have spotlighted on three major paradigms when probing examining protest event violence and/or repression, namely: threat, weakness, and threat-weakness interaction. Theoretical approaches highlight threat focus on the manner in which movements threaten people in positions within power. Collective violence emanates from the dynamic interaction of all actors engaged within a protest event including authorities, protesters, and counter protesters. Hence, it is essential to determine the factors impacting on protest event violence (Tilly 2004, p.4). Majority of the studies on the repression and social control of protest events manifest a number of outcomes such as police presence, arrests, and repression perpetrated by state authorities. In the propagation of violence by the various groups, each group mainly interprets the events as verification of its own ideology, and attempt to impose upon the emerging narrative of the protest within its own political line (Jenkins 1983, p.527). This represents frame amplification and frame extension as each group rise against state repression. Political protests and political violence Political protest and political violence have overtime become frequent in the last decades’ correspondingly; political protests may be subjected to increased scrutiny by scholars. The outbreak of violence within collective actions such as protest demonstrations emanates from a dynamic process emanating from the interaction of police and protestors (Lichbach 1998, p.402). Protesters engage in violence based on various motivations: the first variable impacting on whether protesters engage in violence draws from the simple normative choice regarding the use of violence (Jasper 2002, p.2). In some cases, this involves an ethically motivated rejection of violence in which a person or group may reject the utilization of violence since they believe it to be wrong for moral reasons. For instance, most of the groups engaged in anti-war movement reject the use of violence tactics based on ethical grounds. The second determinant of recourse to violence draws from the perceived efficacy of violence as a tool, in both absolute sense and perceived superiority relative to other possible techniques (McAdam, McCharty, and Zald 1996, p.7). In the event that violence does not qualify as efficacious, the orientation toward violence will be reduced. The other determinant of violent action centres on whether the group engaged within the protest demonstration is provoked into violent behaviour perpetrated by the police. This may manifest covertly via the utilization of agents provocateurs or overtly by direct assaults on the participants. In the event that there is adequately strong normative rejection of violence, the provocation to engage in violence might fail (Goodwin and Jasper 2003, p.6). The normative rejection of violence, where present, is likely to direct the entire protest campaign provided that there are no elementary changes witnessed within the leadership group organizing the unfolding campaign. The question regarding the efficacy of violence is highly to be a factor only in cases where there is no normative rejection of violence (Saxton and Benson 2006, p.137). Provocation represents a significant determinant of violence and draws heavily from the actions of the police. Protesters are in most cases provoked into violence owing to police violence; nevertheless, other actions perpetrated by the police such as arbitrary arrests might in some instances trigger protesters to violence (Piven and Cloward 1991, p.435). Police violence can also emanate from provocation perpetrated by their opposition-the protesters. The provocations can take a wide range of forms with the most prevalent being protester violence (Tarrow 1998, p.421). Similarly, legal actions that constitute a contravention of norms of accepted norms such as shouting obscenities or making obscene gestures can also trigger the police to violence. Furthermore, deliberate illegal acts perpetrated by protesters that do not feature violence may also incite the police to violence. For instance, the police may endeavour to disperse an illegal sit-in by moving in with batons rather than making arrests (making arrests is a substitute police response to protester violence or events of civil disobedience) (Kritzer 1977, p.630). Anticipation of trouble at protest demonstration can also yield to police violence, whereby, in the event that trouble is anticipated, police officers at the site are most likely to be on the edge in which a minor incident triggers a major, violent response by the police (Blok 2001, p.103). This indicates that apprehension on the part of the police that trouble will feature, in the majority of cases, can be a self-fulfilling expectation. Lastly, police may make a conscious decision to engage in violence at a certain event. These causes of police violence at incidents protesters can be signified in the degree of police preparations for trouble. For instance, White (1989, p.1277) maintained that the development of IRA violence in a community that was largely pursuing peaceful protests largely driven by state repression rather than economic deprivation. White stipulated that, prior to protesters endorsing political violence, the victims of repression ought to (1) perceive the authority repressing them as illegitimate, (2) perceive peaceful protest within the face of repression as ineffective, and (3) reaction to the reactions to repression of individuals with whom they hold close ties. Organizing violence is laden with challenges and successful collective actions face coordination problems. Free riding among groups emanates from the fact that protesters have to sustain the high costs of engaging in violence, but the possibility of violent protests will accrue to the broader population. Conclusion The concept of conflictual collective action detail that social movement actors can be involved in either political and/or cultural conflicts designed to foster or oppose social change. Conflict, in this case, relates to oppositional relationship evident between actors pursuing to gain control of political, cultural, or economic power whereby the demands sought are likely to damage the interests of the other actors. The ubiquitous and deadly nature of violent conflict has necessitated a shift from violent to non-violent means of conflict to avert prolonging, or heightening deadly conflicts or catastrophic conflagration. In the event that violence is not out rightly rejected, it is likely that it may be embraced or rejected for individual events to fulfil certain tactical reasons or act as an overall campaign strategy. Hence, efficacy of violence as a predictor of protestor violence is restrained, not because of an overall campaign decision or to circumstantial events, but rather, for individual event, the normative and practical considerations interact to yield an event-specific tactical decision, the admittance or rejection of violence for that event. References List Aminzade, R. et al. (2001). Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Pp.12. Blok, A. (2001). Honour and Violence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp.103-114.  Goodwin, G. & Jasper, J. (2003). Rethinking Social Movements. Structure, Meaning and Emotion, Lanham, Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield. Pp.6. Goodwin, G. & Jasper, J. (2009). The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, Oxford, Blackwell. Pp.10. Jasper, J. (2002). A strategic approach to collective action: looking for agency in social movement choices, Mobilization: An International Journal, 9 (1), pp.1-16. Jenkins, C. 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