Political Violence in Time and Space

It is a truism that every kind of political violence, including riots, violent state repression of dissent, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, rebellion and civil wars, occurs in time and space, but much of the literature is not informed by clear conceptions of time and space. Instances of violent conflict are often treated as independent events that can be understood outside their temporal and spatial contexts. This section will debate how the temporal and spatial structuring of political violence has important implications for its emergence, development, decline and impact. For these reasons we welcome papers that address three main issues: (1) conceptual and theoretical thinking about political violence in time and space, including refining existing definitions and typologies; (2) methodological reflections about how to deal with the subject matter and how to avoid the obstacles that have hindered previous research, from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective; (3) empirical analyses of political violence in time and space, in particular comparative studies encompassing different types of conflicts and/or countries. We welcome submissions that deal with actor groups such as social and protest movements, terrorist groups, insurgencies and other non-state armed formations, and radicalising state institutions. The section will bring together distinguished scholars and younger scientists not only from political science, but from related disciplines, including sociology, geography, anthropology, psychology, historical science, international relations, and area studies. In organising this section we seek to further the development of research on political violence in Europe and globally, to contribute to establishing an international network of scholars working in this field and to promote the publication of outputs such co-edited books or special issues of international journals). This section is organised and supported by the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence.