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Violence or Nonviolence? A Comparison of Costs and Effectiveness

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Abstract

Violence is a common response to conflicts and is widely assumed to be more effective than nonviolent approaches. This chapter reviews the evidence concerning the costs and effectiveness of violence and nonviolence in four major areas – campaigns to bring about social change, corporal punishment to bring up ‘good’ children, deterring criminal behaviour by long sentences and harsh treatment of offenders and high levels of military capacity to provide security at the national level.

Geoff Harris, Professor, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa; e-mail: geoffreyh@dut.ac.za.

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Harris, G. (2019). Violence or Nonviolence? A Comparison of Costs and Effectiveness. In: Hove, M., Harris, G. (eds) Infrastructures for Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14694-8_3

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