“Without Weapons”: the Problem of Conceptualizing Violent and Nonviolent Protest in Modern Political Science

The article is devoted to the analysis of the academic discussion that revolves around the problem of conceptualization of violent and nonviolent protest. After the author briefly documents the main milestones in the study of protest movements, he focuses on the main one — the emergence of the concept of Erica Chenoweth and her database of Nonviolent and Violent Campaign Outcomes (NAVCO). On the basis of this concept and database, as well as their criticism, the author demonstrates the existing conceptual chaos in defining and disentangling violent/nonviolent and armed/unarmed protests. According to his initial hypothesis, such chaos largely stems from the inattention to the extent of violence and disregard for its relativity. However, after the author elaborates an alternative hypothesis taking into account these factors, and it appears incapable of answering several questions that arise when studying protest campaigns, he had to conclude that the origins of this situation are far deeper. Having examined in detail the set of problems faced by protest researchers, the author suggests that at least some of them will be solved by returning to the context, which in turn requires abandoning methodological homogenization and including qualitative methods in the research arsenal, along with quantitative ones. At the same time, according to his conclusion, the general conceptualization of violent/nonviolent, as well as armed/unarmed, protests is impossible and meaningless. It will always encounter limitations that Political Science cannot overcome.