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Internal War
Internal War
Internal War
In general an enormous gulf still exists in social science between theoritical schemata
and empirical work and why, confronted with a concrete subject like internal war, even the
more illustrious masters of social theory are visible ill at ease.
Pre-theoritical concerns in IW Study:
1. Delimitation: To state unambiguously what that subject is.
Can these phenomena in fact be generalized about, and what other concrete events must
valid generalizations about them fit? While a subject usually originates in an interest, the
interest does not constitute the subject.
Someone interested in hungarian uprising, potemkin mutiny and laotian guerilla war has
a topic, or three, but he still has to determine whether any theories about all three can
constructed, what kinds, and in what other cases they should or should not hold. Must
discover the boundaries of his subject, DELIMIT IT. First is to find a homogeneous set of
cases. Second is somehow to limit the degree of homogeneousity required.
Internal War belongs to the realm not only of social force but also to political outputs
advantageous to the groups that urge them, favorable policies, offices, or general control
of the political structure of society.
Janos: IW is part of the general struggle of individuals, groups, parties and movements
for “authority”
Marion J. Levy: IW involve challenges by “minority systems” to the “Gemeinschaft set” of
values in a society.
S.M. Lipset: IW belong to the general universe of social instability
2. Classification: its object is to divide a subject into classes distinct from one another –
classes about which both common and separate generalizations can and ought to be
formulated.
Janos Lists 7 techniques of internal war: strikes, demonstrations, terrorism, guerilla
warfare, civil war, insurrection, coup de force)
Thornton: 1 type of IW – terror - but distingushes it briefly from 2 others, one involving
conventional warfare, the other guerilla warfare)
Kornhausser: Classifies cases according to the authority structures in which internal arise
and toward which they tend.
3. Analysis: The division of a subject into its basic components. Its counterpart is
synthesis, the combination of the components into typological classes or to represent
particular cases. Example: Chemical table of elements.