Regimes of violence/nonviolence: regulating the meaning-making of violence and nonviolence

Despite the growth in violence and nonviolence literature, few scholars explore how the meanings of these terms are governed, disregarding their discursive character. Expanding on the revived ‘regime of violence’ theory, this article proposes the concept of regime of violence/nonviolence as an inclusive and comprehensive conceptualisation that entangles violence, nonviolence, and their relations. States reify hegemonic regimes of violence that regulate and reinforce commonsensical state-legitimising understandings of violence. By co-opting nonviolence scholars and institutions, they attempt to do the same with a strategic, statist and reformist notion of nonviolence based on a politics of respectability. Contesting these dominant notions, resistance groups and critical scholars advance alternative understandings of violence and nonviolence that can reify counter-hegemonic regimes of violence/nonviolence. The concept of a regime of violence/nonviolence brings together violence and nonviolence scholarship and can enable more situated, empirical studies of how the meanings and practices of violence and nonviolence are governed.