Political violence of the unenfranchised for social or personal liberation
Date
2016-07-15
Authors
Bawa, Umesh
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The study focused on the perceptions and' experiences of youtlidn relation to patticip~fion in
political violence. ;It examined the .relatierrship between exposure to state violence, expo§ure to
domestic violence,. ideological support for violence and participation in poMticaLviolence;and
explored the extcat to .which 'g~nder, age and socio-econemic status inf1u~nced,paiticip~at1o~ in
political violence.' ,
\\
II
The traditiL\nal an~ contextual theories of violence th~tTorward explanations for participa~()n in
political. violence lwere reviewed and their merit relative to viqfence participation. critically
examined. o ,
U .!,} _ " .
. " Ojl,.i \ \r)'
'~;;" , /.) ,. " }
A structured self questionnaire was developed after an initial pool of item J pertaining to violence
were generated, their psychometric properties.ofmtemal consistency ass(jssedand these clustered
into the. various violence; scales. The revised questionnaire was adnlinistered to first entry
undergraduate students (n= 1902, N:.:2677) at the Universityofthe Western Cape. The datawas
analysed using quantitative methods, such as chi-square analyses, t-tests and cortelation ryatdces.
Data that showed a high degree' of self-reported~ untruthfulness was discarded frorii further
analysis. The level of statistical Significance was set at p< Oj0001.
(I
The results reveal that the majority of respondents were victims of state violence. Participation'
in political violence is significantly related to exposure to state violence, an '~deological support
of violence, as well as to being male and older.
Gender and age differences were noted for participation in political violence with older males
being politically violent. 1~lere wag, no significant difference for socio-economic status and
participation ill political violence.
The variable that showed the strongest relationship to participation in political violence was
exposure to state violence (r=0,77), followed by ideological supportof violence (r=O,;2). The
relationship of participation in political violence to exposure to domestic violence though
significant was poor.(r=Oj08).
Thus the study found that participation in political violence is mainly a function of exposure to
state violence and is context specific. The youth had not learnt to be politically violent by being
involved in domestic violence.
Contextual theories seemed to offer a better explanation for participation in political violence for
youth in South Africa. Future research should focus on the interrelationships between 1~6litica1
violence and interpersonal violence.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, Clinical Psychology. Johannesburg 1991.