Civilian Peacekeeping

In class we talked about the notion of civilian peacekeeping as existing in several applications of nonviolence. There is nonviolence for social change, nonviolence for social defense, and nonviolent intervention. In the spirit of civilian peacekeeping, we seem to focus primarily on the notion of nonviolence for civil defense, where the people keep order and peace.

This strongly reflects an interesting podcast that I remember listening to several weeks ago about how governments function. They mentioned the notion of a monopoly on violence, and stated that governments work solely on a shared notion that they are the only ones allowed to use violence. This actually makes a lot of sense. After all, it really takes a degree of violence in order for any government to be able to enforce any law. The notions of prisons reflect this theme, we accept socially that governments have the right and ability to put people in cages for an indefinite amount of time even though if this were to happen outside of our legal system, it would be considered unacceptable. Therefore, it is violence that maintains social order. I find this view somewhat problematic, while I agree that it is violence that governments use to maintain laws and prevent anarchy, I argue whether or not this is necessary in the maintenance of social order. This is where the notion of civilian peacekeeping comes into play. How can peace be maintained by civilians nonviolently, when we accept that violence is necessary when the government uses it? Is the fact that there is one group of people who are accepted as being able to legitimately use violence truly necessary for civilization?

Civilian peacekeeping is a very interesting notion because it requires a great deal of cooperation among willing citizens. While often civilian peacekeeping movements have leadership, I do not believe that this is akin to a government. From what we have talked about and learned from civilian peacekeeping movements, often these movements are encouraged socially by custom. It is interesting to see how civilian peacekeeping can maintain nonviolent and still enforce social order.