The force/violence distinction and the analysis of political violence
In characterising the force of the state as violence, we are not denying the differences
which exist between formal and informal political violence. Indeed, a general
definition of political violence presupposes, as we have argued, the acknowledgement
of serious and significant differences. But simply because two forms of a movement
or institution are different, this does not mean that they do not also have something
in common.
The argument by Johnston that states use force, whereas criminals and terrorists
use violence (1993: 16–17) is unpersuasive since, with the best will in the world, it
is impossible to limit force. Force by its nature always goes to extremes. State
functionaries are not saints: their job – this is particularly true in the case of members
of the armed forces – may be to injure and even kill, and it would be naive to think
that this is possible in a way which is always proportionate and regulated. The
same objection holds for Pettit’s argument that it is only when force is used in an
arbitrary way, freedom is compromised. He equates the law with the force of the
state (1997: 302), but why can’t we have laws based upon social sanctions, so that
offenders are punished but not in a statist manner? Of course, this is only possible
when people can identify with one another, but these are the kind of sanctions
which are used in everyday life in thousands of institutions which enforce rules and
regulations against those who breach them. Pettit’s argument is that the use of force
only makes you unfree when this force is arbitrary.
But how can force be non-arbitrary? The use of force even when it is regulated
and supposedly limited has an irreducibly arbitrary element since you cannot treat
a person as a thing (which is what force involves) without an element of
arbitrariness. How do you know the way in which the person upon whom the force
is inflicted will respond? The perpetrator of force must be ready to act suddenly
and unpredictably, so that the notion of arbitrary force is a ‘pleonasm’, that is,
force cannot be other than arbitrary. Pettit acknowledges the problem when he
concedes that criminal law processes often terrorise the innocent as well as the guilty
and in practice, if not ideally, fines and prison sentences can be exposed as
domination (1997: 154). It is true that non-arbitrary force is an ‘ideal’, but it is the
kind of ideal which the state can only undermine as an institution claiming a
monopoly of force.
Pettit argues that many people, responsive to ordinary norms, may not be so
responsive if they knew that there was no great sanction attendant on breaking the
norms (1997: 154). This, it could be argued, is wrong. Force, while transitionally
necessary in a world where negotiation cannot work, weakens norms, creates
resentment and undermines rather than consolidates responsiveness to norms. Pettit
takes the view that arbitrary interference involves a high level of uncertainty – there
is no predicting when it will strike (1997: 85). This is surely a problem inherent in
force itself.
To argue that the goal of the state is the promotion of freedom as non-domination
(Pettit, 1997: ix), can only be naive, given the fact that the state as an institution
involves arbitrariness and thus domination. Pettit contends that if the welfare and
the world view of the public are taken into account, then the act of law or state is
not arbitrary (1997: 57). It is certainly true that a ‘democratic’ state is less arbitraryChapter 20 Political violence 459