Political Violence in the World

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Political violence has been around for centuries in many different forms. Even back in ancient times and in the times of Christ have many cases of political violence even though in those times government was only recognized through a leadership of the throne for a kingdom. Wars and great battles have taken place only because of the conflicts over land or to protect their own kingdom of invasions. Now political violence in the 20th century is not so different from the ones in the past. Even though now days it takes a lot more to engage in wars as to back then, but overall the same concept. These days terrorist attacks, massacres, war threats, and war itself are the main examples of violence which are the most common ones to happen. Even though violence is not something states should encourage to do, sometimes it is the only necessary action to do when a state has no other option to take.

There are many roles for violence in the political system, and some of those roles can fall into the category of either protection or establishment, such examples for protection can be war threats. Threats as these fall under this definition, “Political violence then is the use of physical force in order to damage a political adversary” (Porta 2). When a country that has an enemy, has continuous war threats, and terrorist attacks will most likely only go into a war in the means of protecting their country and its innocent citizens. There have been cases like these in the past and are currently some today in some countries in Asia and the middle-east such as Iraq where they have to fight to protect their selves from invasions and possibly death. Iraq and the United States had started a war in 2003 and continued it for nine long years. ...

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...If it affects the citizens of a country in a terrible way that they need help to survive or children need to eat then of course people can come together and try to turn things around for them and try to make a difference in their lives. But if it is change that those people seek then only the help of the citizens of that country can make a change not anyone else. All the people have to be on the same page and want true peace if they want to have a nonviolent country otherwise it is going to remain the same.

Works Cited

Source 1:

Gupta, Dipak K. Understanding Terrorism and Political Violence: The Life Cycle of Birth, Growth, Transformation, and Demise. London: Routledge, 2008. Google Books. Web. 12 May 2014.

Source 2:

Porta, Donatella Della. Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Google Books. Web. 12 May 2014.

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