The political, power, and peace: democratic politics of the extraordinary

 In this module, we will study what seems to be an oxymoron: political violence. Although we commonly associate politics with violence, this module aims to demonstrate to you that the political is a realm which is characterised by power, not violence. For most people, power and violence seem to be a pleonasm, but again we are facing an oxymoron. Power and violence are not two sides of the same coin, but they have to be conceptualised as opposing elements of our life-worlds. If there is violence, there is no power and vice-versa which makes violence a key indicator for depoliticising tendencies in world politics. To be able to critically assess these tendencies, we need to be aware of the different forms of violence. Violence cannot only be understood in its physical form, but it can take many (structural and cultural) forms and more often than not we don’t even recognise that we are exposed to violence. Particularly in a globalised world, we experience new forms of violence and old ones are becoming aggravated of which we need to be aware. This module, however, aims not only to raise your awareness about and your ability to critically reflect on globalised violence, but we will also discuss ways to re-politicise world politics in order put power back in the hands of people. To achieve this aim, you will be introduced to the core conceptualisations of political violence as well as particular forms of political violence in world politics. This latter aspect is divided into two categories: violence and the state as well as violence in world politics. Although these categories are used as heuristic devices to help you categorise political violence, please note that – due to global interconnectedness – most forms of violence appear and influence our life-worlds domestically and globally.