From predators to providers: the role of violence and rules in establishing social control

In the modern world, social order is most often maintained by states, using a complex web of institutions, norms, and systems to control the population and govern their actions. In this dissertation, I ask how groups establish and maintain social control absent these powerful structures. To answer this question, I propose a new theoretical construct, based on a foundation of social science and observation of the competition for social control that occurred in Baghdad, Iraq from 2006 to 2008. I identify and test what is both necessary and sufficient for a group to establish social control over a population under conditions approaching anarchy. I argue that to establish social control, a group must do three things. First, a group must possess specific latent capacities that enable them to credibly control violence. Second, groups must apply violence in purposeful ways, ascending a hierarchy of increasingly complex collective activities to establish social control. Finally, social control is achieved only when the group uses violence to provide a specific set of benefits that provide utility not only to the group, but also to the population it seeks to control. I define this step as adjudication. Implications and applications are discussed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Wright, Timothy Flynn

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Roger Petersen.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118218

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/118218