ABSTRACT
Collective violence is a form of contentious politics. It counts as contentious because participants are making claims that affect each other's interests. It counts as politics because relations of participants to governments are always at stake. Politicians and political philosophers often advocate good, strong government as a bulwark against violent victimization. But all governments maintain control over concentrated means of violence in the form of arms, troops, guards, and jails. Most governments use those means extensively to maintain what their rulers define as public order. Rulers, police, philosophers, and historians often distinguish between force and violence. This chapter explores the political context for the great variation. It reviews the constitution of political actors, the special place of political entrepreneurs as connectors and organizers of collective violence, and the significance of specialists in violence such as police and bandits. Political identities serve as springboards for claim making, but they do far more political work than that.
