The Study of the Consequences of Armed Groups: Lessons from the Social Movement Literature

Abstract

Despite the development of the political violence and terrorism literature, which has moved strongly forward in the past decade, scientific works on the consequences of armed groups are still rare. This article encourages cross-fertilization between the sparse studies of the consequences of political violence and the growing body of research on how social movements matter. First, we show the variety of potential outcomes of armed groups' violent repertoires. We then review works on the consequences of social movements and highlight lessons for the study of armed groups. Specifically, we urge scholars to look for the interplay of internal and external factors in studying the impact of armed groups. We call for a comparative focus that dwells less on conditions and more on the processes and mechanisms affecting the impact of political violence. At the same time, we acknowledge that the literature on political violence and terrorism can inform social movement scholarship. In particular, students of social movements should pay more attention to the potential economic consequences of protest activities, the international factors constraining their impact, and the life-course patterns of movements' targets.

Iron Will

“…Studies of the consequences of armed groups have been on the rise in security and social movement literature but are still limited. There is a particular need for studies on the economic outcomes of all kinds of protest activities (including violent and armed) that offer process-and mechanism-based explanations, rather than studies that just compare conditions (Bosi and Giugni 2012). This has been one of the main goals of this book.…”

The Contribution of Social Movement Theory to Understanding Genocide

“…Moreover, in 2008, Donatella Della Porta wrote that such work remained "episodic" in the social sciences (2008: 221). As a result, the years since have seen a surge of research on political violence and social movements (in addition to the above, see Bosi and Giugni 2012;Maney et al 2012;and Oberschall 2004). Despite these developments, social movement research has said very little about genocide, 1 even though the field itself was originally developed in reaction to fascism (Nazism in particular), a political movement responsible for arguably the worst genocide of the twentieth century (Luft 2015a;Meyer 2004).…”