ABSTRACT
Both the terrorist tales and the memorial book dealt with the legitimation of the resort to violence by non-state actors in pursuance of their political ends. The corrupter-corrupted model and etiology stories, in contrast, related to the legitimation or, to be more precise, the delegitimation of those who failed to prevent and even encouraged such actions. The two kinds of stigma contest revolved around the politics of definition and the politics of designation, respectively. Both kinds of stigma contest that occurred in the wake of violence by non-state actors were based on narratives. Political leaders who tried to delegitimize their rivals on the grounds that they were causally and politically responsible for violence contended that the horrible consequences are a sure sign of the error of their ways. There are also important differences between the corrupter-corrupted model used to explain the election violence and the etiology stories about the Jewish Underground.
