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

 

Edited by  Wilhelm Heitmeyer; Heinz-Gerhard Haupt;  Stefan Malthaner; Andrea Kirschner

New York, Springer, 2011

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.

 

Table of Contents

Part I Introduction

Control of Violence An Analytical Framework
Andrea Kirschner, Stefan Malthaner

Part II Mechanisms and Strategies of Violence Control 

An End to Violence
Michel Wieviorka

Cross-National Homicide Trends in the Latter Decades of the Twentieth Century: Losses and Gains in Institutional Control?
Steven F. Messner, Benjamin Pearson-Nelson, Lawrence E. Raffalovich, Zachary Miner

Self-Control and the Management of Violence
Charles R. Tittle

Self-Control, Conscience, and Criminal Violence: Some Preliminary Considerations
Helmut Thome

Reading Religious Violence in Terms of Theories of Social Action
Hans G. Kippenberg

Religion and Control of Violence
Levent Tezcan

Gun Volence and Control in Germany 1880-1911: Scandalizing Gun Violence and Changing Perceptions as Preconditions for Firearm Control
Dagmar Ellerbrock

Controlling Control Institutions: Policing of Collective Protests in 1960's West Germany
Klaus Weinhauer

Part III The Micro-level: School Shootings

School Violence and Its Control in Germany and the United States Since the 1950's
Dirk Schumann

School Shooting: A Double Loss of Control
Nils Böckler, Thorsten Seeger, Wilhelm Heitmeyer

Explaining and Preventing School Shootings: Chances and Difficulties of Control
Rebecca Bondü, Herbert Scheithauer

Masculinity, School Shooters, and the Control of Violence
Ralph W. Larkin

Media and Control of Violence: Communication in School Shootings
Glenn W. Muschert, Massimo Ragnedda

Part IV The Meso-level: Terrorism 

Terrorism as Performance: The Assassinations of Walther Rathenau and Hanns-Martin Schleyer
Bernd Weisbrod

Party Politics, National Security, and Émigré Political Violence in Australia, 1949-1973
Mate Nikola Tokic

Control of TerrorùTerror of Control
Jitka Malecková

Terrorism: Conditions and Limits of Control
Friedhelm Neidhardt

Fighting for the Community of Believers: Dynamics of Control in the Relationship Between Militant Islamist Movements and their Constituencies
Stefan Malthaner, Baseless Jihad, Khaled Al-Hashimi, Carolin Goerzig

Part V The Macro-level: Violence in States in Crisis

Ethnic Riots in Situations of Loss of Control: Revolution, Civil War, and Regime Change as Opportunity Structures for Anti-Jewish Violence in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Europe
Werner Bergmann

Control and Chaos: Paramilitary Violence and the Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire
Robert Gerwarth

Failed States in Theoretical, Historical, and Policy Perspectives
Jean-Germain Gros

Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline? Violence Control in "Fragile" States: A Study of Vigilantism in Nigeria 
Andrea Kirschner

Concluding Remarks  
Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Wilhelm Heitmeyer

 

Subject Index