Political violence is widespread in potential but uneven in expression. I propose a two-level integrative framework that helps explain the capacity for and expression of political violence, derived from the broadening interdisciplinary behavioral science research on violence. The first level of this framework centers on species-typical psychological mechanisms (common across humans) that regulate coalitional dynamics such as moralization, identity categorization, and collection action for violence. The second level focuses on individual-level catalysts: person-specific variable traits that predispose some individuals to cross the threshold into violent action. While each perspective is supported by extensive research across the social sciences, political science has yet to synthesize them explicitly into a single coherent model. Integrating these two levels offers a comprehensive foundation for analyzing a broad spectrum of political violence, at once both reconciling and moving beyond fruitless nature-vs-nurture type stalemates to help explain both the ubiquity and variability of an ancient vice.

Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on Europe, it sheds light on the substantive relationship between partisan antipathy and three kinds of norm‐breaking escalation in the form of avoidance, intolerance and support for violence against party supporters. Methodologically, it unpacks the affective component of polarization, testing to what extent the traditional feeling thermometer performs as a predictor of these three potential outcomes. It then tests alternative expectations of the antecedents of such escalation derived from the intergroup emotions’ literature and the study of political radicalization. This is done using a broad range of both established and new survey items fielded in nationally representative panels between May and November 2020 in two contexts that score relatively low (Norway) and high (the United Kingdom) on affective polarization. They reveal that avoidance, intolerance and support for political violence can be validly measured, and are manifest, in these two European countries, but that they are only weakly correlated to mere dislike of the outgroup. Instead, more severe forms of norm‐breaking escalation depend on the specific nature of the discrete emotions induced beyond dislike (anger, fear or disgust) and are rooted in factors such as relative deprivation, Manicheanism, and dark personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism). We discuss the implications for the way polarization is theorized and measured.

Do attacks against politicians exacerbate the political underrepresentation of marginalized groups? Existing research suggests that candidates and officeholders from underrepresented groups are more likely to become targets of political violence, but little is known about the consequences of indirect exposure to political violence for descriptive representation and political ambition. Focusing on the case of women in politics, we study how the prevalence of political violence affects both the descriptive representation and the political ambition of women in Germany – Europe's largest democracy. Combining an analysis of observational data measuring crimes against politicians with evidence from original and pre‐registered survey experiments, we first demonstrate that attacks on political elites are not associated with fewer female candidates on party lists for local elections. Examining political ambitions and underlying microfoundations with different samples of respondents varying in their likelihood of considering political candidacy, we provide survey‐experimental evidence that information about the prevalence of political crime does not reduce willingness to run for office or engage in politics among female respondents with high political interest but may do so among those with low political interest. Taken together, this study highlights the resilience of underrepresented groups in the face of increasing political violence. However, we also show that political violence may create a pipeline problem if it deters the wider population of women from even considering to run for office.

Do individuals with right‐wing populist ideologies have higher violence‐justification attitudes than those supporting different political ideologies? While the literature has confirmed the association between political violence and populism, research on which components of populist ideologies relate to individual attitudes towards political violence is relatively scarce. Based on 18 European democracies, this research note examines whether right‐wing populist individuals are more likely to justify political violence to pursue their political goals. The analyses reveal that right‐wing populists are generally more likely to justify political violence compared to mainstream voters and non‐voters. Additionally, left‐wing populist voters also support political violence, although the effect size is comparatively smaller. This indicates that voters’ radicalisation depends on populist ideologies rather than left‐right ideological distinctions. The effect among right‐wing populists depends on city residence, gender and immigration status. Subsequent analyses suggest that right‐wing populists’ attitudes towards violence are not conditional on nativism or anti‐immigration perceptions. These findings contribute to the general understanding of the nature and consequences of populism.

Do salient episodes of state violence affect citizens' willingness to pay taxes for different social purposes in the long run? In this article, I answer this question using an original dataset that geolocates individuals who were seriously injured during the anti‐communist Romanian revolution of 1989. Using the number of casualties within different regions as a source of quasi‐exogenous variation, I show that the places from which more casualties come have systematically lower levels of tax morale. I argue that these results arise because there has been no clear break with the authoritarian past in Romania, and many citizens still associate the current political elites with the former communist rulers who perpetrated the violence of December 1989.

Orthodox terrorism studies tend to focus on the activities of illiberal non-state actors against the liberal democratic states in the North. It thus excludes state terrorism, which is one of a number of repressive tools that great powers from the North have used extensively in the global South in the service of foreign policy objectives. I establish the reasons for the absence of state terrorism from orthodox accounts of terrorism and argue that critical–normative approaches could help to overcome this major weakness.

European far-right parties have enjoyed mixed success in the past few years. The primary elements in many of these parties’ policy platforms centre on security, terrorism, and foreign persons. Naturally, these platforms are designed to attract electoral support that these actors can parlay into governing positions. Our study offers an important test to ascertain how voters respond to terrorist attacks with respect to centre- and far-right parties. We contend that far-right parties are to likely benefit from terrorist attacks more than centre-right parties. The results from more than 30 European countries, spanning 1975–2013, affirm our hypothesis. The implications for partisanship, governance, and terrorism are explored in this paper as well.

This article examines the ethical and methodological challenges for the critical investigation of ‘terrorism’ and political violence. Who is such research ‘for’? How might critical research avoid replicating hegemonic accounts while still engaging with dominant discourses? The pressure to find answers to the real (and imagined) threats of ‘terrorist’ violence and the challenges of establishing a critical perspective while including an emancipatory dimension are addressed, and a suggested code of practice and research agenda for critical studies on terrorism is provided.

En el marco de la Comisión para el Acceso a la Verdad, el Esclarecimiento Histórico y el Impulso a la Justicia de las Violaciones Graves a los Derechos Humanos Cometidas de 1965 a 1990, creada en 2021 en México por decreto presidencial, entre los años 2022 y 2024 se organizaron foros regionales donde se presentaron diversos testimonios sobre la violencia política infringida durante dicho período histórico. Desde un enfoque que comprende a los mismos como prácticas narrativas de memoria y resistencia que son significadas desde el presente, este artículo aborda los testimonios narrados durante el Diálogo por la Verdad en el Estado de Chiapas. El análisis muestra formas de visibilización de la agencia política indígena en contexto contrainsurgente.

How does the international security environment influence whether and how military regimes democratise? This paper argues that for militaries in power, sustained external threats facilitate democratisation by credibly assuring the armed forces of continuing influence after leaving office. The credibility of this assurance stems from the military’s monopoly on the provision of national security and the reliance of all parties on the armed forces for the country’s defence. Militaries, confident of their continued influence after returning to the barracks, are more likely to cede power to democratisers when facing prolonged threats from abroad. Utilising a comparative case study of ruling militaries in Burma and South Korea, this paper tests four implications of the theory for how crises over democracy unfold between governing militaries and the opposition in contrasting security environments. It finds support for each of the implications.

Isotopes of strontium, oxygen, and carbon were analyzed in human tooth enamel from two Postclassic sites in the central Peten lakes region, Guatemala, to examine patterns of mobility and diet during a time of social unrest. Excavations at both sites, Ixlu and Zacpeten, have revealed evidence for purposeful dismemberment and interment of individuals. This study examines a possible shrine surrounded by rows of skulls at Ixlu, and a mass grave of comingled individuals interred at Zacpeten. The interments coincide with a period of conflict and warfare between two dominant polities, Itza and Kowoj. The 14 sampled individuals at Ixlu were young males, six of whom isotopically match the Maya Mountains of central Belize/southeastern Peten. At Zacpeten, isotopic signatures of adults and children (n = 68) suggested that many were either local or came from other parts of the Maya lowlands, but not the Maya Mountains. In the Late Postclassic, the Zacpeten individuals were exhumed, defiled, and deposited in a mass grave, probably by Kowojs. Although temporally and geographically related, the Ixlu and Zacpeten burials represent two distinct cases of ritual violence that reflect the tumultuous political landscape of the Postclassic period.

Most of what we know about organized criminal violence comes from research on illicit narcotics markets. Yet criminal groups also fight to capture markets for licit commodities, as evidenced by Sicilian lemons and Mexican avocados. When do organized criminal groups violently expand into markets for licit goods? We argue that rapid increases in the share of a good’s export value create opportunities for immediate profit and future market manipulation. These opportunities lead to violence as groups expand their territorial holdings and economic portfolio. We provide subnational evidence of our mechanism using data on avocado exports from Mexico, and address reverse causality with Google Trends data on the popularity of web searches for “avocado toast.” We also provide cross-national evidence by combining data from the Atlas of Economic Complexity, V-Dem, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). We find that increases in a country’s share of global export value for agricultural goods are associated with more homicides—but only where organized criminal groups are present.

Among all the situations scrutinised by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Guinea has received the least scholarly attention. This article fills that gap by analysing the ICC's preliminary examination of Guinea (2009–2022) and testing claims that it represents a success for the Court. Based on 25 interviews in Conakry, it examines the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) and its diplomatic engagement with state authorities, showing that Guinea is a partial success story. However, this success extends beyond the textbook application of complementarity rules – it reflects lessons learned by the OTP following previous diplomatic missteps in Guinea and other contexts. The analysis underscores that ICC scrutiny is deeply shaped by political dynamics, with favourable domestic and international conditions playing a crucial role. This case study not only sheds light on ICC-state relations but also offers insights into how the Court can navigate political challenges to fulfil its mandate.