Clandestine Political Violence

This volume compares four types of clandestine political violence: left-wing, right-wing, ethnonationalist and religious fundamentalist.

Donatella della Porta (Author)

9780521146166, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 May 2013

338 pages, 12 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

'Della Porta, one of the foremost scholars of social movements, turns her attention in this new work to the question of why groups resort to terrorism, or what she terms clandestine political violence … this is a necessary addition to any academic collection on terrorism, political violence or social movements. Summing up: highly recommended.' A. G. Reiter, Choice

Clandestine Political Violence compares four types of clandestine political violence: left-wing (in Italy and Germany), right-wing (in Italy), ethnonationalist (in Spain) and religious fundamentalist (in Islamist clandestine organizations). Oriented toward theory building, Della Porta develops her own definition of clandestine political violence. Building on the most recent developments in social movement studies, Della Porta proposes an original interpretative model. Using a unique research design, she singles out some common causal mechanisms at the onset, during the persistence and at the demise of clandestine political violence. The development of the phenomenon is located within the interactions among social movements, countermovements and the state. She pays particular attention to the ways different actors cognitively construct the reality they act upon. Based on original empirical research as well as existing research in many languages, this book is rich in empirical evidence on some of the most crucial cases of clandestine political violence.

1. Political violence and social movements: an introduction
2. Escalating policing
3. Competitive escalation during protest cycles
4. The activation of militant networks
5. Organizational compartmentalization
6. Action militarization
7. Ideological encapsulation
8. Militant enclosure
9. Leaving clandestinity? Reversing mechanisms of engagement
10. Clandestine political violence: some conclusions.

Subject Areas: Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Comparative politics [JPB], Islamic studies [JFSR2]