Breaking Laws: Violence and Civil Disobedience in Protest questions the complex relationship between social movements and violence through two contrasted lenses; first through the short-lived radical left wing post '68 revolutionary violence, and secondly in the present diffusion of civil disobedience actions, often at the border between non-violence and violence. This book shows how and why violence occurs or does not, and what different meanings it can take. The short-lived extreme left revolutionary groups that grew out of May '68 and the opposition to the Vietnam War (such as the German Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, and the Japanese Red Army) are without any doubt on the violent side. More ambiguous are the burgeoning contemporary forms of civil disobedience, breaking the law with the aim of changing it. In theory, these efforts are associated with non-violence and self-restraint. In practice, the line is more difficult to trace, as much depends on how political players define and frame non-violence and political legitimacy.
This book questions the complex relationship between social movements and violence, and shows how and why violence occurs or does not, and what different meanings it can take.
Acknowledgements, List of Abbreviations, Organizations, and Parties
Introduction to Breaking Laws Part 1 Revolutionary Violence: Experiences of
Armed Struggle in France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the United States
Isabelle Sommier Translated by Marina Urquidi
1. Introduction to Part 1:
Revolutionary Violence in Context
2. A Subject Concealed Violence and Social
Movements: Fragmented Analytic Traditions Distinguishing Terrorism and
Revolutionary Violence The Silence Surrounding 1968 The '1968 years', a cycle
of protest
3. A Revolutionary Period? The International Context The Student
Revolts The United States Japan Germany France and Italy The Generational
Dimension of Revolt The Growth of the Extreme Left The United States Japan
Germany France Italy The Autonomous Movement
4. Radicalization Processes
Repression and Counter-Movements Germany Italy Japan The United States
Competition and Mutual Influences The United States Italy Japan France Social
Isolation Germany High-Risk Commitment and the Logics of Clandestine Action
5. Strategies of Violence Propaganda of the Deed The United States Japan
France Resistance and Urban Guerrilla Warfare Germany Italy The
Insurrectionary Model: Taking the Attack to the Heart of the State Germany
Anti-Imperialism and the Transnationalization of Actions Germany France Japan
6. The End of a Cycle Anti-Terrorist Policies The United States Japan France
Germany Italy A Farewell to Arms Germany Italy France
7. Conclusion to Part 1
Part 2 Civil Disobedience Graeme Hayes and Sylvie Ollitrault
8. Introduction
to Part 2: Civil Disobedience in Perspective
9. Definitions, Dynamics,
Developments Theorising Civil Disobedience Conscience and collective action,
direct and indirect disobedience 'Performative' Civil Disobedience Direct and
indirect disobedience reconsidered Conceptual Distinctions in Historical
Overview Quakerism Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Satyagraha according to
Gandhi The US Civil Rights Movement (1955-65) Conclusion
10. Contemporary
Movements: Genealogies and Justifications Civil Disobedience in France The
cultural importance of manifestoes Conscientious objection and
anti-militarism From Larzac to Notre Dame des Landes Civil Disobedience and
Urgency Action and emergency Urgency and environmental disobedience Urgency
and undocumented migrants Disobedience and neo-liberal globalization Global
Justice Professional identities Conclusion
11. Repertoires of Civil
Disobedience The Constraints of Illegal Action Disobedience as activist
technique Civil Disobedience and Media Representation Greenpeace, reporters
of their own action Criminal Prosecution Trials as political arenas Civil
disobedience and prosecution: the case of the GANVA Networks of Commitment
Conclusion
12. Negotiating the Boundaries of Violence and Non-Violence
Property Destruction Ploughshares Seeds of Hope 'Pro-life' direct action The
Effects of Direct Action The INRA Colmar crop destruction Anti-abortion
clinic activism Staging Action Care and symbolism in action The Relational
Logic of Harms The Semantic Construction of the Civic Conclusion
13.
Conclusion to Part 2 Biographical notes Germany France Italy The United
States Japan, Bibliography Endnotes, Index.
Isabelle Sommier is Full Professor of Political Sociology at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University, former director of the CRPS (Centre de recherches politiques de la Sorbonne) and currently Deputy Director of the CESSP (Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique, a fusion between CRPS and CSE Bourdieu institute). She has published on the theory of social movements, political violence, radicalization and terrorism. Graeme Hayes is Reader in Political Sociology at Aston University, UK. He is joint Editor of Environmental Politics and Consulting Editor of Social Movement Studies, and has published widely on non-violent action, environmental movements, and protest traditions. Sylvie Ollitrault is Senior researcher at CNRS-France, Rennes University. She has published on French environmental movements, NGO action and protest movement. She is involved in numerous academic networks (AFSPIPSA-ECPR) on Green movements.
