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Crime, Law & Social Change (2005) 43: 289307
DOI: 10.1007/s10611-005-2031-1 C Springer 2005Brigate Rosse: Political violence, criminology and social
movement theoryVINCENZO RUGGIEROMiddlesex University, London, UK
(e-mail: [email protected])Political violence has been studied by political scientists, psychologists, literary critics and philosophers; it has been addressed by psychoanalysts, poets
and novelists; and narrated by playwrights, film directors and radio broadcasters. Criminologists seem, so far, to have largely evaded the task, as if the
adjective political accompanying the noun violence exempted them from
any analytical effort. This is singular if one thinks how criminology is constantly seeking novel fields of research, excavating hidden abnormal conducts,
and at times even inventing areas of problematic behaviour which might confer legitimacy on its intrusive gaze. This is all the more unique if one considers
that criminology inherits most of its concepts from classical sociology and
social theory, both replete with ideas of collective action, social change and
agency, ideas which contain and are intertwined with, in various fashions,
the concept of political violence. It has been argued that criminology and the
sociology of deviance have long abandoned notions of social change, and that
a selection of the tenets derived from classical sociology, along with a careful
sieving of ideas, has been instrumental in their struggle to gain disciplinary
independence and status. The selection and sieving of ideas have also helped
criminology convey an image of effectiveness, affirm the legitimacy of its
existence, and attract the sympathy of research funding agencies (Savelsberg
and Sampson, 2002; Ruggiero, 2003a).Political violence belongs not only to ancient, but also to modern tragedy,
especially when interpreted as a tension between the need for radical change
and its human cost (Eagleton, 2003). It is true that attempts to end injustice
and produce social change may create new forms of injustice, and that liberation may not cancel the violence accompanying its course, but it might be
observed that liberation and violence are connected, and this connection is
tragic (Williams, 1966). Why should criminology be excluded from the study
of this tragic violence? And yet Beccaria provides a clear definition of sedition, and Bentham of the crimes against the state; Lombroso anatomises the
anarchists, while other Positivists such as Ferri, Sighele and Ellero explain
violent movements and crowds; Bonger analyses the...