Strategic Military Retreat to Mitigate Climate Change
For example, consider unions and, specifically, the work force of the military industrial complex. Research from the Costs of War project interviewed defense contractor employees in the U.S. and the U.K. to find out what their views were on climate change and their sector’s role in exacerbating the climate crisis. … Read more
How Militarization Harms Migrants in the Mediterranean Sea
This analysis summarizes and reflects on the following research: Kinacioglu, M. (2023). Militarized governance of migration in the Mediterranean. International Affairs, 99(6), 2423-2441. Talking Points In the context of maritime migration in the Mediterranean region: Migration has been framed as a hybrid threat by the European Union (EU) and North … Read more
What Are the Wider Effects of Election Violence?
Much of the existing research on election violence focuses on what causes it and what it entails. Physical attacks, threats, and harassment are forms of violence widely described in examples of election violence. Feminist scholars suggest that there is an undercounting of psychological forms of election violence (the form of … Read more
What Drives Election Violence?
In the wake of violence, a few common questions tend to dominate public discourse: Why did this happen? What caused this? These are worthwhile questions that we will address below in this review of the drivers of election violence and other forms of political violence, with a particular focus on … Read more
The Effects of Political Polarization on Political Violence in the U.S. and Other Democracies
This analysis summarizes and reflects on the following research: Citation: Piazza, J. A. (2023). Political polarization and political violence. Security Studies, 32(3), 476-504. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2023.2225780 Talking Points Political polarization makes support for and the occurrence of political violence more likely. In the U.S., Republicans and Democrats who exhibit higher levels of … Read more
Support for Political Violence in the United States
This analysis summarizes and reflects on the following research: Armaly, M. T., & Enders, A. M. (2024). Who supports political violence? Perspectives on Politics, 22(2), 427-444. doi:10.1017/S1537592722001086 Talking Points Among a surveyed U.S. public: People who feel like victims (“perceived victimhood”), have authoritarian or populist beliefs, strongly identify with being white, … Read more
The Reassuring Illusion of Victory in War
“Liturgies of triumph”—public rituals that symbolically reinforce and celebrate the idea that the U.S. always wins its wars, “embedded in national calendars, public commemorations, and team sports”—shape the understanding and practice of wartime, both producing an expectation for military victory and assuaging public anxieties that emerge from its absence in most contemporary warfare.
Justifying Violence with the “Less-than-Lethal Paradigm”
The “less-than-lethal paradigm” is a military strategy aimed at managing the popular perception of violence by using less deadly and more concealed methods to justify imperial actions in a way that aligns with the principles of liberal democracy.
How to Tell the Truth about Racial Violence: The Case of Mississippi’s Incomplete Truth Commission
Truth commissions were initially used as a tool in the immediate aftermath of a violent conflict or during political transitions but, as their popularity surged in the 1990s and early 2000s, they began to be applied to contexts within established democracies to address historic harms and injustices.
How Indiscriminate Counterterrorism Can Backfire
While Israel’s use of selective counterterrorism, in the form of punitive house demolitions, did not have a clear impact on Palestinian public opinion, Israel’s use of indiscriminate counterterrorism, in the form of precautionary house demolitions, resulted in more “radicalized” political attitudes among Palestinians from the same district.
Militarization Decreases Women’s Share of Income
Governments should consider “the gendered consequences of military budgets” and reallocate military spending into education and healthcare to improve gender equality and increase women’s share of income.
