Comparative Analysis: The Connection Between Power and

Violence in Sharp, Miller and Ackermann & Duvall

Class: Violence & Non-Violence (CRS-2231) at Menno Simons College, Winnipeg
Instructor: Ismael Muvingi
By Carsten Kaefert

Central Ideas

Gene Sharp: The Politics of Non-Violent Action

Sharp's work can easily be identified as the one being most ambivalent on the topic of violence

and non-violence, as it identifies the two as equal. To Sharp, both are strategies to attain and exercise

power, which to him is the very foundation of all human action. Thus his perspective is far away

from a normative one: The equality of violence and non-violence as strategies forbids such

endeavors as to call a preference on one of the two. This is a point in which he becomes very clear:

Ethics are not determined by the methods, but by the ends they are meant to achieve. Both strategies

can succeed or fail, be put to fair and just use or abused.

The determination of violence or the lack thereof as mere strategies makes his approach very

useful in empiric research: As this approach does not necessarily lead to normative results, it's

outcome is less likly to be contested – which is a feat of quite some importance, as questions of

conflict and violence tend to be rather controversial. This scientific clarity also expands into the

connection between violence and power he states: One (violence or it's counterpart non-violence) is

merely a tool of the other (power). This makes for a simple, clear cut explanation of the

phenomenon, which again can easily put to empiric-analytic use as it leads to valid, researchable

questions. Thus Sharp's work offers lots of power to explain empirically observed cases.

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Alice Miller: Poisonous Pedagogy

Alice Miller's essay on the use of violence on the contrary offers very little to directly explain

violence on an institutional level, but rather on an individual level (which then can of course be

extrapolated, as institution are determined by people). Her text focuses solely on the upbringing of

children and it's effect on their mental health. In doing so she refers to the use of violence in two

ways, both of which are relevant in this context: Violence as revenge and violence as a result of a

difference in power.

Violence as revenge assumes that perpetraitors of violence have themselves previously

experienced violence as victims. As soon as they leave the situation or context victimizing them, the

likelihood of them becoming violent to pay back for the sustained injury is extremely high. As

society doesn't allow them to exert this violence on those who used it on them, they tend to use it on

those over which they have power. Which leads us to the second factor Miller identifies behind

violence: A difference in power. According to her, the use of violence in this case knows only one

direction: From the powerful to the powerless. The motivations range from sheer sadism and the

aforementioned revenge to the intention of keeping the power relation as it is or just the perceived

lack of other means.

As is pretty obvious, these two are hardly dichotomic, but heavily interdependent. To exercise

violent revenge, according to Miller a difference in power is needed. Lacking other means than

violence hints to previous experience with it – in turn implying the motif of revenge. And although

all of these mechanisms are effective on an individual level, their widespread use turns them into a

matter of relevance to the whole society. But in implying a single, very personal reason behind

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violence, Miller's conclusions become highly vulnerable to critique. In some areas, for example in

stating the exclusive responsibility of parental abuse for psychological disorders, her work is already

obsolete.

Ackermann & Duvall: A Force More Powerful

The third essay on the topic by Peter Ackermann and Jack Duvall again takes a different

perspective: It looks at the outcome of the use of violence respectively non-violence, thus taking a

more practical stance. At the same time, their model of violence is the most complex one: It looks at

violence in larger scale conflicts and analyses the circumstances, such as the involved parties, the

ends sought and the means employed, that lead to a specific result.

Basically, Ackermann and Duvall conclude another analysis on the effect violence has on the

distribution of power, close to what Sharp did. But opposed to Sharp, they differentiate between

violence and non-violence and thus establish other relations between the two and power.

Violence and non-violence are to them, as they are to Sharp, methods of achieving change in

the structure power in a given frame. But that is where the similarities end: According to Ackermann

and Duvall, violence can achieve change, but is not able to maintain it. To maintain power, they state,

non-violent methods are necessary, as violence inheritantly brings instability with it. One way of

explaining this is violence (especially in it's murderous last consequence) leading to a kind of

intoxication.

This choice of imagery (although taken from Hannah Arendt) makes it obvious, that they do

have a normative impetus promoting non-violence over violence. This impression is also supported

by the fact that the assume that non-violence creates progress, although they admit it can lead to

fiercer conflict. This makes their point vulnerable to critique: If non-violence can escalate a conflict

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and thus transform it into a violent one, where is then the fundamental difference between these two?

This could lead to the assumption, that both are different stages of a conflict instead of being

different types of conflict.

Evaluation and Conclusion

Within these three texts, we find two basically different approaches towards the relationship

between force and power: Violence as a consequence of a certain structure of power, as Alice Miller

describes it, and violence as a tool to change these structures, as it is pictured by Gene Sharp and

Peter Ackermann and Jack Duvall. As Millers approach is additionally largely focused on the

individual level and only in it's very last consequence open to generalization, I take the freedom to

omit this one for being too hard to validly applay in case of a conflict.

This leaves Sharp and Ackermann and Duvall on the table. On superficial inspection, the latter

one seems more useful in the analysis of conflict, as the authors provide plenty of examples and their

hands-on-style of writing implies a higher practicability. But quite the opposite is the case: Due to it's

clarity and structural simplicity, Gene Sharps approach has the greatest appeal. It is for sure the most

adaptable approach and thus able to explain or at least describe the most, while at the same time

steering clear of unnecessary controversy. Thus it has to be considered the most valuable scientific

tool.

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