To date, there is no synthetic, general theory of violence able to integrate the less complete theories of violent behaviour. There is little agreement among researchers about the causes of violence (not to mention what to do about it) and the field has become vast in terms of literature. This paper reviews theories of violence, mostly from sociology, political science and psychology both at the level of the individual and the collective. The paper is divided in two parts: the first deals with theories that see violence as a reaction, the second deals with those theories that see violence as a mean to attain goals.
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