Institutional and Organizational Approaches. Social movement studies perspectives on political violence

Political violence by non-state actors, whether in the form of clandestine groups, riots, violent insurgencies, or civil wars, o en emerges in the context of social movements, can shi back to non-violent methods of contentious collective action, and in many cases does not mark a new and separate phase of contention but proceeds in parallel with street protests, marches, boycotts, and strikes. At the same time, di erent forms of political violence are interlinked and are part of a continuum of repertoires of actions—rather than representing discrete and mutually exclusive types—and o en occur successively or simultaneously during processes of con ict escalation (when violence increases in scale, type, and scope) or de-escalation (when violence overall decreases). In this chapter, “political violence” is preferred to the term “terrorism” because it allows us to capture continuities and shi s between di erent forms of violent and non-violent contention as well as variance within violent repertoires. Moreover, “terrorism,” because of its strong normative and political connotations, is much more contested, has doubtful heuristic value, and has o en been used to stigmatize rather than to explain the social phenomena under examination (Tilly 2003). Political violence, in this sense, involves a heterogeneous repertoire of actions oriented at in icting physical, psychological, and symbolic damage on individuals and/or property with the intention of in uencing various audiences for a ecting or resisting political, social, and/or cultural change.