Violence appears where power is in jeopardy. For Arendt, “Power and violence are opposites where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence is action taken to forcefully coerce support from a group. Arendt writes of the idea that states need power to be able to sustain violent actions (Arendt 1972, 143) and that the use of violence erodes this power. For Arendt, power is effectively a mandate for an actor to take action – it is in effect the political capital that can be fostered by democracy or popular support. This essay will attempt to identify how Arendt’s work can help understanding conflict by applying and comparing her work to contemporary conflicts – with varying success.Īrendt’s On Violence contributes to the understanding contemporary conflict primarily through it’s redefinition of related concepts chiefly being power and violence, as well as terror. However, there is value in many of the arguments and definitions given in On Violence. The paradoxical and way power is considered by Arendt, and the implications of Arendt’s ideas make applying her concepts to modern conflicts problematic at times. Largely a theoretical or philosophical justification of violence rather than a useful application of theory, On Violence, arguably the most relevant of Arendt’s work to contemporary conflict, is inadequate in helping to understand the conflict of today, certainly compared with the thought of many other thinkers.

The work of Arendt, while certainly useful in understanding a definition of violence within conflict, can be applied only inaccurately to contemporary conflicts. To What Extent Can the Work of Hannah Arendt Help Us in Understanding Contemporary Conflicts?

On Violence by Hannah Arendt