Ps 2A03 (2010) Lecture 5: Understanding power, violence and nonviolence

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Monday October 4 2010Lecture 5: Understanding power, violence and nonviolence

PS 2A03: Conflict TransformationDr Colin Salter, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University

Conflict processes...Understanding power, violence & nonviolence

1Monday, 4 October 2010


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Outline

Power

Sources of power

Consent/coercion

Culture of conflict



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...there is a great deal more to analysing conflicts thanidentifying the key components: the parties and their

positions, relationships and so on.

Fisher et al(2000)



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Power has a number of meanings: force, legitimacy,

authority or the the ability to coerce.

Fisher et al(2000)



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All power is present in, and based on, relationships.

Fisher et al(2000)



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Soft power Hard power

Power



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nonviolence

Different to non-violence

Active

Creative

Tendency to diffusepower

Do you think this fallsinto soft or hardpower?



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A third dimension

the power to prevent people, to whatever degree,

from having grievances by shaping their perceptions,cognitions, and preferences in such a way that theyaccept their role in the existing order of things.

Stephen Lukes (2005) on Charles Tilly (1991)



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Coercion

If, for example, a [person] who is ordered to go to

prison refuses to do so and is physically dragged there(that is, [s]he is coerced by direct physical violation),[s]he cannot be said to obey...

Gene Sharp (1973)



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...and consent

But if [s]he walks to prison under a command backed

by threat of a sanction, then [s]he in fact obeys andconsents to the act, although [s]he may not approve ofthe command. Obedience thus exists only when onehas complied with or submitted to the command.

Gene Sharp (1973)



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Culture of conflict

a societys configuration of norms, practices and

institutions that affect what people enter into disputesabout, with whom they fight, how disputes evolve, andhow they are likely to end.

Marc Howard Ross (1993)



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Few of us recognise our own prejudices, and normallywe deny them, giving them what we deem valid reasons

for our feelings and behaviour.

Fisher et al(2000)



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Summary

Soft Power

Hard power

Consent theory of

power

Culture of conflict



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Citations & further reading I

Simon Fisher, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, Jawed Ludin, Richard Smith, Steve Williams andSue Williams (2000) Working With Conflict: Skills and Strategies for Action, New York:Zed Books

Donna Haraway (1991) A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The

Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, pp.149-181. Available online at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Lewis Lipsitz, & Herbert M. Kritzer (1975) 'Unconventional Approaches to ConflictResolution',Journal of Conflict Resolution, 19(4): 713-733.

Lukes, S. 2005. Power: A Radical View, London: Palgrave McMillian.

Brian Martin (1989) Gene Sharp's Theory of Power,Journal of Peace Research, vol.26, no. 2, 1989, pp. 213-22.



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Citations & further reading II

Kate McGuinness (1993) 'Gene Sharp's Theory of Power: A Feminist Critique ofConsent',Journal of Peace Research, 30(1): 101-115 Marc Howard Ross (1993) TheCulture of Conflict, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Gene Sharp (1973) The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part One - Power and Struggle,

Boston: Porter Sargent.

Charles Tilly (1991) 'Domination, Resistance, Compliance... Discourse [ReviewEssay]', Sociological Forum, 6(3): 593-602

Suzanne Williams, Jan Seed & Adelina Mwau (1994) The Oxfam gender training manual,

UK and Ireland: Oxfam

Nora Young (2010) Happy Birthday Cyborg during Cyborgs, Digital Sabbaths, andSuper Sad True Love, Spark, CBC Radio. Episode 120, September 22. Available fordownload at http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2010/09/spark-120--september-19-22-2010/



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Image sources

Dave Boldingers Cartoons & Stuff http://www.dbaldinger.com/opinion_cartoons/second_page/dear_world.html

ames Garvin Ellis. Rodney Powell (standing) talks with other sit-in participants at Walgreens drugstore in Nashville,Tennessee, Friday March 25, 1960 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_sit-ins

Marc Riboud.Jan Rose Kasmir, protest against the Vietnam War outside the Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, Saturday,21 October 21, 1967 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Rose_Kasmir

Shaney Komulainen. Canadian soldier Patrick Cloutier and Saskatchewan Native Brad Laroque alias 'Freddy Kruger'come face to face in a tense standoff at the Kahnesatake reserve in Oka, Quebec, Saturday September 1, 1990 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis

Tim & Tegan, Council Of Australians For Uneducated Americans, The Two of Us [no date] http://www.johnsons.id.au/?p=54


Ps 2A03 (2010) Lecture 5: Understanding power, violence and nonviolence

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