Violence in Activism: Instigating Factors and Thresholds Breached

Violence in activism has been a topic of interest for several decades dating back to the earliest studies in the 1960s. This study takes a multidisciplinary approach and investigates activism within the contemporary context. It addresses the possible influence that demographic characteristics and psychological variables may have on the decision to engage in civil disobedience and the type of behaviour chosen. Behaviours range from letter writing to engaging in increasingly illegal and violent forms of civil disobedience. Unlike previous research, this study also investigates the influence that external instigating factors, such as dimensions of threat, may have on violence in activism. Dimensions of threat include the timing of the threat, the social unit affected and the saliency of the threat.