Ebook: Control of Violence: Historical and International Perspectives on Violence in Modern Societies

Modern societies are increasingly confronted with forms of violence that appear unpredictable and uncontrollable. Are the existing control regimes such as police, state surveillance institutions, and legal systems able to effectively contain phenomena such as school shootings, terrorism, or violence in fragile states, and what would help them become more effective? What is the relationship between state rule and self-control in limiting violence? Taking an historically and internationally comparative perspective, the contributors to this innovative book examine these violent phenomena as well as the preconditions and mechanisms of their control. Taking into consideration the fundamentally ambivalent character of control, they explore how institutions and strategies of control retroact on and thus re-shape societies. Moreover, they address general aspects of violence control in modern societies such as the concept of individual self-control, the impact of changing social institutions and the role of religion. The contributions to this volume explore violence on the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of social organization, creating a cohesive theoretical framework for understanding violence on each of these levels. Control of Violence in Modern Societies will be of great interest to researchers studying violence, particularly to those studying the phenomenon in a global context, be it from a criminological, a sociological or from a public health perspective.

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The Control of Violence in Modern Society, starts from the hypothesis that in modern society we will face an increasing loss of control over certain phenomena of violence. This leads to unpredictable escalations and violence can no longer be contained adequately by the relevant control regimes, such as police, state surveillance institutions, national repression apparatuses and international law. However, before investigating this hypothesis from an internationally and historically comparative perspective, the terms and "tools" for this undertaking have to be rendered more precisely. Since both "control" and "violence" are all but clear-cut terms but rather highly debatable and contested concepts that may take multiple connotations. The main question is whether an increase in certain forms of violence can be explained by the failure or, in turn, "overeffectiveness" of certain control mechanisms. It is asked, for instance, which contribution religion can make to limit violence and, in turn, which destructive potential religion might have in its fundamentalist form. Moreover, the concept of individual self-control as well as social institutions and strategies of collective disengagement and de-radicalization are investigated with regard to their potential for controlling violence. The Control of Violence in Modern Society concludes with a re-examination of the hypothesis of a loss of control by specifying in what cases and under which circumstances we can speak of a loss of control over violence.