Conflict processes...

Understanding power, violence & nonviolence

Monday October 4 2010

Lecture 5: Understanding power, violence and nonviolence

PS 2A03: Conflict Transformation

Dr Colin Salter, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University

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 Outline

• Power • Consent/coercion
• Sources of power • Culture of conflict

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 ...there is a great deal more to analysing conflicts than
identifying 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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 Power

Soft power Hard power

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 Consent theory of power

...people in society may be divided into rulers and

subjects; the power of rulers derives from consent by
the subjects; non-violent action is a process of
withdrawing consent and thus a way to challenge the
key modern problems of dictatorship, genocide, war
and systems of oppression.

Brian Martin (1989) on Gene Sharp

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 nonviolence

• Different to non- • Tendency to diffuse

violence power

• Active • Do you think this falls

into soft or hard
• Creative power?

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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 they
accept 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 and
consents to the act, although [s]he may not approve of
the command. Obedience thus exists only when one
has complied with or submitted to the command.

Gene Sharp (1973)

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 Culture of conflict

a society’s configuration of norms, practices and

institutions that affect what people enter into disputes
about, with whom they fight, how disputes evolve, and
how they are likely to end.
Marc Howard Ross (1993)

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 Few of us recognise our own prejudices, and normally
we 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 • Consent theory of

power
• Hard power
• Culture of conflict

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 Citations & further reading I
Simon Fisher, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, Jawed Ludin, Richard Smith, Steve Williams and
Sue 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 Conflict

Resolution', 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 of
Consent', Journal of Peace Research, 30(1): 101-115 Marc Howard Ross (1993) The
Culture 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 [Review

Essay]', 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, and
Super Sad True Love’, Spark, CBC Radio. Episode 120, September 22. Available for
download 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

James 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

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