For most of the political theory, the relationship between violence and politics has been left aside as an unpleasant fact about which it is better not to think. The article discusses this relationship, by taking three points of departure. (1) The question of the use of violence amplifies the Machiavellian drama of politics: the search for effectiveness in action in tension with the observance of normative principles. (2) It is possible to say, with Girard, that the political order is constituted to exorcise violence. The fact that politics seeks to prevent the irruption of what is in its substrate reinforces that tension. (3) In all this discussion, however, the focus is on open violence. The structural or systemic violence, linked to the current forms of domination and oppression, is set aside and is not marked as a deviation from the acceptable political modes. But their material effects are as clear as those of open violence. Thus, there is no way to discuss the relationship between violence and politics without introducing structural violence, which is often embedded in the very institutions that should prevent overt violence.
Violence; Politics; Conflict; Domination; Resistance