Political violence as a value problem for security policy

The author argues that the moral dimensions of political violence play a crucial role in the conceptualization of effective ways to combat such violence. It goes on to argue that the ability to empathize with the politically violent is a difficult precondition for the development of effective control strategies, and guilds its interpretation on the philosophical perspectives on the legitimacy of grievances and illegitimacy of methods used to address them by terrorists and the other perpetrators of political violence. The author draws parallels between key controversies in politically violent campaigns and conventional wars, and concludes that despite the alarming in palatability of political violence, the experiential record so far suggests that a de-escalation of mutual perceptions between the politically violent and the mainstream society appears to be a necessary precondition for the resolution of the underlying conflicts