Defending Against Large-Scale Violence

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
For more information

June 27, 2026

Large-scale violence is one of the clearest signs that constructive conflict has failed. Political violence, riots, mass shootings, civil war, and international war are different in many ways, but they all undermine the basic democratic promise that people can pursue change without resorting to force. Such violence does more than injure its direct victims. It frightens whole communities and nation states, changes how people vote and speak, weakens trust in public institutions, and can make compromise look like betrayal. As the United Nations notes in its work on preventing conflict and sustaining peace, prevention requires reducing tensions, fear, and insecurity before they explode into violence.

Large-scale violence often grows out of long-running grievances that were ignored, manipulated, or handled in ways that deepened fear. The conflict in Northern Ireland, commonly known as the Troubles, shows how political, communal, and security conflicts can become mutually reinforcing over time. The United States in the 1960s offers another warning. The Kerner Commission examined the civil disorders of 1967 and emphasized that public disorder was tied to deeper social and institutional failures. These examples differ greatly, but they point to the same lesson: societies are safer when they address legitimate grievances early, before fear and rage become organized around violence.

Prevention requires both security measures and democratic repair. Threat assessment, emergency planning, and protection for vulnerable targets are important, especially where there are signs of planned attacks. The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center describes threat assessment as a proactive approach designed to prevent targeted violence before it occurs, and the Department of Homeland Security provides resources for preventing targeted violence and terrorism. But security alone cannot solve the problem. Democracies also need credible elections, fair courts, trustworthy policing, responsible media, and leaders who refuse to encourage violence by their own supporters. Otherwise, security responses can become just another source of grievance.

When violence is imminent or underway, the state has a duty to protect people. It may need to separate hostile groups, secure public buildings, stop armed intimidation, or respond to attacks. But the response must remain lawful, proportionate, and accountable. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials state that force should be used only when strictly necessary and only to the extent required. This standard is central to democratic legitimacy. Heavy-handed crackdowns can inflame the very conflicts they are meant to control, especially when people believe that the state is protecting one side and punishing the other.

At the far end of the spectrum is war, which Beyond Intractability addressed extensively in its earlier work. This Guide focuses more on threats to democracy and on the civic, institutional, and political practices that can keep conflicts from reaching that point. Still, the principles remain connected. The United Nations Charter calls on states to settle disputes by peaceful means, while the International Committee of the Red Cross emphasizes that, even in war, parties must distinguish between civilians and combatants. The deeper democratic goal is to keep societies from having to rely on those last-resort rules at all. Preventing large-scale violence means building political systems strong enough, fair enough, and trusted enough to keep fierce conflict within nonviolent bounds.

—————————

This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.