This book presents empirical research on the nature and structure of political violence. While most studies of social movements focus on single - nations, Donatella della Porta uses a comparative research design to analyse movements in two countries - Italy and Germany - from the 1960s to the 1990s. Through extensive usage of official documents and in-depth interviews, della Porta is able to explain the actors' construction of external political reality. The empirical data are used to build a middle-range theory of political violence that incorporates an analysis of the interactions between social movements and the state at the macro-level, an analysis of the development of radical organizations as entrepreneurs for political violence at the meso-level, and an analysis of the construction of 'militant' identities and countercultures at the micro-level.
Foreword Sidney Tarrow; List of abbreviations; Preface; 1. Comparative research on political violence; 2. Political violence in Italy and Germany: a periodization; 3. Violence and the political system: the policing of protest; 4. Organizational processes and violence in social movements; 5. The logic of underground organizations; 6. Patterns of radicalization in political activism; 7. Individual commitment in the underground; 8. Social movements, political violence and the state; a conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
