Pacifism and Nonviolence

Having a stronger army no longer guarantees military success. Whether in managing protests, in counter-terrorism, or in peacebuilding, violent and repressive approaches tend to be counter-productive and less effective than well-designed nonviolent alternatives. Similar evidence is emerging concerning bottom-up protest and resistance: violent campaigns appear less effective than nonviolent ones, including against brutal and undemocratic regimes.

Yet the serious arguments put forward by advocates of pacifism and nonviolence remain underexamined. But this is starting to change. A growing literature is giving serious attention to pacifism and nonviolence, and 2023 will see the launch of a new journal dedicated to the topic.

This IAS Spotlight Series will explore some of the salient questions in this emerging literature with a series of hybrid seminars.

Thursday 28th April 2022 – 3:00pm

Seminar I: Memories of Violence

This seminar will bring together a group of scholars to reflect on the way violence is remembered and commemorated from the World Wars to the climate crisis.

Featuring:

• Dr Mathias Thaler, University of Edinburgh (UK)
• Dr Peter Yeandle, Loughborough University (UK)
• Dr Victoria Basham, Cardiff University (UK)
• Dr Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Loughborough University (UK)

To book onto this event, please click here

Friday 29th April 2022 – 11:00am

Seminar II: The Cult of Violence in Politics

This seminar will bring together a group of scholars to consider a variety of critiques of common rationalisations for violence and pacifist responses to it.

Featuring:

• Prof Richard Jackson, Otago University (New Zealand)
• Prof Kimberly Hutchings, Queen Mary University of London (UK)
• Dr Helen Dexter, University of Leicester (UK)
• Prof Paul Rogers, University of Bradford (UK)

To book onto this event, please click here

Monday 20th June 2022 – 11:00am

Seminar III: Responding to Violence

This seminar will bring together a group of scholars to examine more closely a range of concrete examples of responses to violence, including in civilian protection initiatives, with military defectors, and in responses to ‘killer robots’ and to counterinsurgency.

Featuring:

• Dr Molly Wallace, Portland University (USA)
• Prof Rachel Julian, Leeds Beckett University (UK)
• Dr Naomi Head, University of Glasgow (UK)
• Dr Jeremy Moses, University of Canterbury (New Zealand)

To book onto this event, please click here

Monday 20th June 2022 – 3:00pm

Seminar IV: Militarism

This seminar will bring together a group of scholars to discuss various facets of militarism, including faith in the institutions of violence, how political philosophers overlook militarism, wargaming in the US military, and militarisation in Palestine.

Featuring:

• Dr Ned Dobos, UNSW Canberra (Australia)
• Prof Cheyney Ryan, University of Oxford (UK)
• Dr Aggie Hirst, King’s College London (UK)
• Dr Marwan Darweish, Coventry University (UK)

To book onto this event, please click here

Seminar V: Nonviolent Protest and Resistance

This double seminar will bring together a group of scholars to analyse different dimensions and examples of nonviolent protest and resistance, including the idea of rebellion, nonviolence as a philosophy of life, methods of constructive resistance, protests in the US, and civil resistance in Thailand.

Featuring [TBC]:

• Dr Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand)
• Dr Michael Loadenthal, University of Cincinnati (USA)
• Dr Chris Rossdale, University of Bristol (UK)
• Prof Stellan Vinthagen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA)
• Prof Ramin Jahanbegloo, O.P. Jindal Global University (India)
• Prof Mona Lilja, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
• Dr Iain Atack, University of Dublin (Ireland)

Booking details for the final event will be forthcoming.

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias/programmes/pacifismandnonviolence/