Violence, Civilization and the State

Authors

  • Penny Green King's College
  • Tony Ward University of Hull

Keywords:

Violence, modern state, legitimacy, organized physical violence

Abstract

Drawing on Elisian notions of civilization this paper explores the violent character of modern states. In discussing violence we are concerned with ‘organized physical violence in the most material sense of the term: violence to the body’ (Poulantzas, 1978: 29). There may be a good case for defining violence more broadly in some criminological contexts (Salmi, 2004; Tombs, 2007) but what concerns us here is the close relationship between organized physical violence and the state. Not only do modern states claim a monopoly of legitimate violence in this sense (Weber 1972); they also perpetrate or instigate most of the world’s serious violent crime: the infliction of pain, injury or death in contravention of legal or moral norms (Green and Ward, 2004). It is this illegitimate violence, or state crime, that concerns us here.

Author Biographies

Penny Green, King's College

P

Tony Ward, University of Hull

Reader in the School of Law at the University of Hull and he is also Director of the International State Crime Initiative.

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Published

2011-03-14

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2010)

Section

Dossier Transitional Justice and State Crimes

License

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