Blog #8

           Political violence: what is it really? Can it be defined? LET US EXPLORE!

            Our illustrious textbook talks about several main categories of political violence. First, there are civil wars, which are armed combats within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority (Samuels). There are also revolutions, which are defined as “armed conflict within a sovereign state between insurgents and the state, in which both the insurgents and the state claim the allegiance of a significant proportion of the population. Authority over the state is forcibly transferred from the state to the insurgents.” (Samuels) There is interstate warfare, where two sovereign states wage war against each other. The book also talks about terrorism, which is political violence committed by non-state actors, and genocide, which is a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of a particular group.

            I’m going to examine the 1973 Chilean coup. In 1970, Salvador Allende became the democratically elected president of Chile. Allende was the leader of the Marxist party in Chile and as per his party platform, he began implementing various Marxist policies. He introduced extensive social programs, nationalized many banks, and most notably, nationalized Chile’s copper mines. The United States was apprehensive about Allende and feared that he would establish an irreversibly communist regime in the western hemisphere. To prevent this, the US government funded opposition groups, produced anti-Allende propaganda, and generally created an unstable environment. These covert efforts paid off when a CIA aided opposition group led by Augusto Pinochet staged a military coup in 1973. The coup was successful and the Allende was forcibly removed from power. Pinochet became dictator of Chile and remained in power until 1990. (Gustafson)

            So, how do we classify the Chilean coup? What kind of political violence was committed? Superficially, the coup seems to be a pretty straightforward revolution. It meets all of the criteria mentioned in the Samuels text. In the Chilean conflict, both the insurgents and the state claimed the allegiance of a significant proportion of the population. The authority of the state was forcibly transferred and the insurgents subsequently brought about wholesale political change. All of these point to a classic revolution.

            However, the involvement of the United States complicates this conflict. The outside actor means that the Chilean coup was not a cut and dry civil war turned revolution. The covert nature of the US’s actions means that it can’t be classified as interstate warfare either. With interstate warfare, the aggression between the two actors is declared and clear. This was not the case in Chile.

The US’s actions have elements of terrorism as well. It supported an insurgent group and used seditious tactics to achieve its goals. However, the US is decidedly not a non-state actor. Samuels’ definition of terrorism states that the insurgents cannot be affiliated with any sovereign nation.

The foreign involvement in the Chilean coup means that it cannot be classified completely in one category. It has elements of a revolution, interstate conflict, and terrorism, yet it fits into none of these groups. Samuels’ definitions of political violence seem to be inadequate in this instance. These categories work well for clean cut acts of violence. However, sometimes the line is a bit more blurred. 

Works Cited:

Gustafson, Kristian C. "CIA Machinations in Chile in 1970: Reexamining the Record", CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence. Retrieved 21 August 2007.

Samuels, David. Comparative Politics. Pearson, 2013.