Preview
IB DP Global Politics — Thematic study: Peace and conflict | SL | Debates on Peace and Conflict
📋 What You Will Learn
- Define protest, non-violent resistance and political violence, and distinguish between them
- Explain the theoretical and ethical arguments for and against non-violent and violent forms of protest
- Analyse how legitimacy is constructed, contested and withdrawn in the context of protest movements
- Compare how different actors — states, movements, international bodies — judge the legitimacy of protest
- Evaluate the claim that non-violent protest is always more legitimate than violent resistance
- Apply levels-of-analysis thinking to show how the same protest looks different to different actors at different scales
🔍 Guiding Question When, if ever, does political violence become a legitimate form of protest — and who has the authority to decide?
🌍 Why This Matters In 2019–2020, protesters in Hong Kong began with peaceful marches of millions but escalated to property destruction and clashes with police; the Chinese and Hong Kong governments labelled them "rioters" while many democracies called them "freedom fighters." The same events, the same acts — yet radically different judgements of legitimacy. This gap between how states and movements define legitimate protest is one of the most contested questions in global politics today.
🔑 Key Concept Link This topic is centred on legitimacy — the perceived rightfulness of an action, actor or system. It cannot be separated from power (who controls the narrative of what counts as legitimate?), sovereignty (does a state's claim to a monopoly on force make all protest violence illegitimate by definition?), and interdependence (how do global audiences, social media and international norms shape whether a protest is seen as legitimate?). Return to these four concepts throughout.
Defining the Key Terms
Before evaluating legitimacy, we need precise definitions — and to recognise that even the definitions are politically contested. What one actor calls "terrorism," another calls "resistance." The language we use already encodes a political judgement.
📖 Definition — Protest Protest is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent directed at a policy, institution, government or social condition. It may be individual or collective, peaceful or violent, legal or illegal, and may target local, national or global actors.
📖 Definition — Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) Non-violent resistance refers to methods of political struggle — including civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, marches and non-cooperation — that deliberately avoid the use of physical force against persons or property. Associated with thinkers such as Gandhi and Gene Sharp, NVR seeks to delegitimise opponents and build broad coalitions without triggering the repressive response that violence can justify.
📖 Definition — Political Violence Political violence is the use of physical force — against persons, property or institutions — to achieve political ends. It ranges from property destruction and riots to armed insurgency, terrorism