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On June 21-23, 2023, The American University of Paris hosted an international conference with an interdisciplinary platform to investigate and debate the question of contemporary irruptions of political violence and to inquire into the different responses intended to counteract violence. When and why do individuals, groups, and societies come to believe that peaceful means and legal avenues of redress, including non-violent civil disobedience, are insufficient or improper to achieve a social or political goal and to view violent action as morally legitimate and necessary for change? Can one identify trends shaping recourse to violence by parts of the populace? What role does state violence play in the dialectic? When, if ever, is political violence legitimate? How can violence be averted? 

These are not new questions in political theory or the social sciences. State and non-state political violence being a regular occurrence in the historical trajectory of all societies, including modern democracies. But they have taken on new salience through the rise of far-right extremist movements and irruptions of individual and group violence of various ideological and social origins. The simultaneity of these phenomena across different countries, and the manifest potential for new violent turns, raises essential theoretical and policy questions, requiring renewed critical investigation.  

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention and the Center for Critical Democracy at The American University of Paris welcomed papers that analyze the origins of violence in new innovative directions and studies of state responses to violence and of the strengths and limits of strategies based on education, dialogue, truth and reconciliation, deradicalization and so forth. We were also interested in historical-comparative work situating current political violence across space and time, critical political philosophical investigations of state legitimacy, as well as rightful and unrightful resistance. We welcomed contributions in all fields, including psychology, political science, anthropology, sociology, history, law, criminology, literature, and communications as well as approaches promoting creative responses to the theme of the conference. 

The conference languages were English and French.

• Call for Papers
• Download the Program
• View the Presentation Abstracts