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Abstract
Research in the areas of global civil society and political violence has tended to reinforce a dichotomy between the two in normative and descriptive terms. This paper uses a qualitative analysis of interviews with participants in both armed and non-armed groups in the Burmese opposition movement to understand how armed struggle and non-violent action operate in this context. In discussing the needs and strategies of their groups and communities, participants demonstrated that armed and non-armed groups often had more in common than is sometimes assumed. A range of viewpoints on political violence existed across the groups, with many armed group members supporting peaceful solutions and many members of non-violent organisations defending aspects of the armed struggle. This paper argues that in view of the degree of overlap in the political attitudes and experiences of armed and non-armed groups in the case study, both categories of organisation should be considered as elements of global civil society.
Notes
1. J. Keane, Global Civil Society? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 145.
2. N. Chandhoke, The Conceits of Civil Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 61.
3. Ibid., pp. 207–220.
4. S.K. Mitra, “Collective Violence and the Making of Civil Society: India in European Perspective”, Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics, No. 19 (2003), available: <http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/4129> (accessed 8 May 2008).
5. M. Albrow and H. Anheir, “Introduction: Violence and the Possibility of Global Civility”, in M. Kaldor, M. Albrow, H. Anheier and M. Glasius (eds), Global Civil Society 2006/7 (London: Sage, 2007), p. 1.
6. R. Falk, “The Changing Role of Global Civil Society”, in G. Baker and D. Chandler (eds), Global Civil Society: Contested Futures (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 76.
7. H. Ezzat and M. Kaldor, “Not Even a Tree: Deligitimising Violence and the Prospects for a Pre-emptive Civility”, in Kaldor et al. (eds), op. cit., p. 19.
8. M. Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), p. 36.
9. M. Kaldor, “The Idea of Global Civil Society”, International Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2003), p. 583.
10. Kaldor, Global Civil Society, op. cit., p. 109.
11. Ibid., p. 128.
12. J. Keane, Violence and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 117.
13. Ibid., p. 109, n. 1.
14. Kaldor, Global Civil Society, op. cit., p. 119.
15. Ibid., p. 120.
16. D. Biro, “The (Un)bearable Lightness of Violence: Warlords as an Alternative Form of Governance in the ‘Westphalian Periphery’”, in T. Debiel and D. Lambach (eds), State Failure Revisited II: Actors of Violence and Alternative Forms of Governance (Duisberg-Essen: Institute for Development and Peace, 2007).
17. M. Humphreys and J. Weinstein, “Who Rebels? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War”, Paper presented to the American Political Science Association annual conference 2006, available: <www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/cpworkshop/papers/weinstein.pdf> (accessed 8 May 2008).
18. M. Florez-Morris, “Joining Guerilla Groups in Colombia: Individual Motivations and Processes for Entering a Violent Organisation”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 7 (2007).
19. G. Seidman, “Guerillas in their Midst: Armed Struggle in the South African Anti-apartheid Movement”, Mobilization, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2001).
20. P. Collier, A. Hoeffler and D. Rohner, Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War, Centre for the Study of African Economies Working Paper 254, available: <http://www.bepress.com/case/paper254> (accessed 8 May 2008); J.D. Fearen and D.D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 1 (2003).
21. C. Cramer, “Homo economicus Goes to War: Methodological Individualism, Rational Choice and the Political Economy of War”, World Development, Vol. 30, No. 11 (2002).
22. Humphreys and Weinstein, op. cit.
23. Florez-Morris, op. cit.; R. Brett and I. Specht, Young Soldiers: Why they Choose to Fight (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004).
24. J. Corbin and A. Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (London: Sage, 1998).
25. Ibid.
26. National Council of the Union of Burma, “Members of the National Council of the Union of Burma”, available: <http://www.ncub.org/MembersofNCUB.htm> (accessed 30 September 2007).