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Introduction: Violence viewed and reviewed
In this brief introduction, Tilly outlines three broad approaches
to explaining why people choose certain actions: the ideas approach,
the behaviour approach, and the relations approach. Tilly concentrates
on explanations of why people choose to use violence, but the three
approaches are transferable to other areas as well.
- The ideas approach stresses the importance of people's environment
for how they perceive the world and choose to act. People acquire
beliefs, values, rules, and goals from their environment, and
consequently try to act out various socially acquired ideals.
- The behaviour approach focuses on people's motives, impulses,
aggressive drives, and general needs for domination, control,
respect, and protection. Some proponents of this approach base
their arguments on evolutionary biology, while others refer more
generally to psychological theories.
- The relations approach highlight interchanges between persons
and groups. They claim that people develop their identity and
choices through various relations with others. This perspective
privileges an inevitable degree of unpredictability and creativity
in people's decision-making, since interpersonal or inter-group
relations are inevitably dynamic.
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