Challenging Violence: Toward a Twenty-First Century, Science-Based “Constructive Programme”

Abstract

Violence in the U.S. is on the rise (e.g., Associated Press, Associated Press News, 2019; National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Annex of statistical information: Country reports on Terrorism 2017, 2018). Interpersonal, collective, and structural violence are maintained by powerful contingencies that are not easily challenged. Violence of all types is strongly connected to other social issues including economic and human rights injustices, and violence of one type begets other types, contributing to what may be described as an ecology of violence. In this chapter, we suggest that responses to violence may benefit from an ecological perspective, by using behavioral systems science to construct ecologies of justice. Perhaps the first attempt at this lofty goal was the work of Gandhi, who rightly considered himself a scientist practicing the science of nonviolent action (Dear, Mohandas Gandhi essential writings, Orbis Books, New York, NY, 2002). Gandhi’s Constructive Programme outlines actionable steps toward nonviolence based on his lifelong experiences using nonviolent action to combat social injustices. Gandhi’s work has become a template for other nonviolent movements, and research has shown that when compared to violent actions, nonviolence has been substantially more effective to combat social injustice (Chenoweth and Stephan, Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2011; Schell, The unconquerable world: Power, nonviolence, and the will of the people, Macmillan, New York, NY, 2004). Building on the work on Gandhi, we offer examples of strategies that have shown or might show promise in addressing the wicked problems that face current societies in the hopes of inspiring more behavior scientists to take on this daunting but important task.