Increasing violence amongst youth in society, burn-out as a widespread disease and scandals in companies are only some of the headlines which appear regularly in the news media. Politics scarcely seems to have any success in fighting violence and injustice in society and in the world. The thesis here suggests that people do not have to wait for a savior such as a politician but that everyone can contribute to a less violent, more peaceful and just world. It will be demonstrated that organizations have an enormous influence on society and this book deals with the possibilities which an organization has to contribute to a less violent culture. By the term “organization” all forms of organized groups of people who come together for a certain purpose are meant, for example schools, clubs, public social aids and others, whilst we mainly concentrate on companies in our research. The intention is to focus particularly on the issues related to the theme of creating a nonviolent culture in the workplace. In the first part on culture, we deal with several questions regarding culture, including such fundamental questions as What is organizational culture?, What are the dimensions of culture? and is it possible to in­ fluence it and if yes, how does it work? In the second part, we take a look at the terms violence and nonviolence and a survey of how these aspects occur in society and organizations is made. The third part is the largest and deals with the qualities of leadership and with the organizational conditions which are necessary to create a nonviolent culture. We hope it will become clearer to the reader that nonviolence is not a strategy or a formula to be used. It can appear very different in different situations. There are component elements which can promote it and there are certain principles that cannot be violated if one wishes to establish true nonviolence. Nevertheless, there is no one patent formula nor one exclusively correct way of creating a nonviolent culture. It requires considerable creativity and endurance to create it and can take a variety of forms.

An empowering guide to understanding the strategies behind successful social movements.

If societies have only memories of war, of cruelty, of violence, then why are we called humankind? This book marks a new trajectory in Memory Studies by examining cultural memories of nonviolent struggles from ten countries. The book reminds us of the enduring cultural scripts for human agency, solidarity, resilience and human kindness.

A Cultural History of Peace presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. The set of six volumes covers over 2500 years of history, charting the evolving nature and role of peace throughout history. This volume, A Cultural History of Peace in the Modern Age, explores peace in the period from 1920 to the present. As with all the volumes in the illustrated Cultural History of Peace set, this volume presents essays on the meaning of peace, peace movements, maintaining peace, peace in relation to gender, religion and war and representations of peace. A Cultural History of Peace in the Modern Age is the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on peace in the twentieth and twentieth century.

Violence on both large and small scales has a tremendous impact on society. The causes and impacts of violence have been under study for decades; however, in the modern era, it is important to remain knowledgeable of the current research on violence. As tragic events flood news headlines around the world, it is essential to evaluate violence, its causes, and its impact on society in order to mitigate and prevent violence globally. The Research Anthology on Modern Violence and Its Impact on Society discusses the causes, ideologies, and perceptions of modern violence and examines its impact on society. It presents emerging research on modern violence in multiple dimensions from interpersonal to mass violence. Covering topics such as gun violence, radicalization, and victim-offender overlap, this major reference work is an essential resource for sociologists, politicians, government officials, law enforcement, community leaders, educators and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, students of higher education, psychologists, criminologists, victimologists, researchers, and academicians.

Though decades ago school shootings were rare events, today they are becoming normalized. Active shooter drills have become more commonplace as pressure is placed on schools and law enforcement to prevent the next attack. Yet others argue the traumatizing effects of such exercises on the students. Additionally, violence between students continues to remain problematic as bullying pervades children’s lives both at school and at home, leading to negative mental health impacts and, in extreme cases, suicide. Establishing safer school policies, promoting violence prevention programs, building healthier classroom environments, and providing better staff training are all vital for protecting students physically and mentally. The Research Anthology on School Shootings, Peer Victimization, and Solutions for Building Safer Educational Institutions examines the current sources of violence within educational systems, and it offers solutions on how to provide a safer space for both students and educators alike. Broken into four sections, the book examines the causes and impacts that peer victimization has on students and how this can lead to further violence and investigates strategies for detecting the warning signs. The book provides solutions that range from policies and programs that can be established to strategies for teaching nonviolence and promoting coexistence in the classroom. Highlighting a range of topics such as violence prevention, school climate, and bullying, this publication is an ideal reference source for school administrators, law enforcement, teachers, government and state officials, school boards, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students who are intent on stopping the persisting and unfortunate problem that is school violence.

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment. Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.