Violence & Non-Violence
20 Violence & Non-Violence Nonviolence doesn’t always work – but violence never does. Madge Micheels-Cyrus
Academic debates on the concept and definition of violence have played a major part in the emergence of the field of peace and conflict research and its historical development from a “minimalist” focus on preventing war to a broader “maximalist” agenda encompassing direct, structural and cultural forms of violence (as defined by Johan Galtung). Nowadays, there is a general consensus that violence includes much more than the use of physical force by persons to commit acts of destruction against others’ bodies or property. Structural conditions such as unjust and oppressive political systems, social inequality or malnutrition, as well as their justification through culture or ideology, are seen as chief sources of violence and war. An example 116