Mapping the landscape between pacifism and anarchism: Accusations,rejoinders,and mutual resonances

Abstract

Pacifism and anarchism share some territory and have cross-pollinated across historical contexts, but are also distinct traditions and movements, with voices in each holding serious reservations and criticisms of the other. Identifying and critically discussing these reservations helps correct widespread misunderstandings in the scholarship and the wider public, thereby also presenting arguments for those outside either tradition to reevaluate their own assumptions and analyses. Anarchist qualms about pacifism and nonviolence include: disputes about the effectiveness of nonviolence; a distrust of the origins and compromises of pacifism and nonviolence; and complaints about the censoring effects of nonviolence in social movements. Pacifist qualms about anarchism include: its support for violence; and its radicality. Each accusation is nuanced or countered with arguments grounded in the indicted tradition. Shared concerns and mutually resonating themes that emerge in the process include: critiques of state violence, militarism and structural violence; and arguments about means as ends-in-the-making.

Introduction

Pacifism and anarchism share some territory and have cross-pollinated in various historical contexts, with anarcho-pacifism and its proponents illustrating the fertility of this common ground. Nonetheless, pacifism and anarchism are also distinct traditions and movements, with voices in each holding serious reservations and criticisms of the other. To date, however, no study has systematically mapped this territory between pacifism and anarchism, plotting the fault lines and contiguities – in other words, identifying and critically discussing the accusations, potential rejoinders and mutual resonances, and with a degree of rigour and detail that reaches beyond the superficial caricatures that can hinder such discussions. The aim of the article is to address this oversight.

There has been considerable growth since the turn of the century in the scholarly literature on both anarchism (Havercroft and Prichard, 2017; Kinna, 2012, 2019; Levy and Adams, 2019; Prichard, 2010) and pacifism (Christoyannopoulos, 2023a; Fiala, 2018b; Jackson, 2018a; Jackson et al., 2020). Some of the scholarship on anarchism has commented on pacifism and nonviolence as well as on themes important for its proponents, such as the role of violence in anarchism and the importance of ‘prefiguration’ (i.e. acting in ways that seek to reflect the intended future). ¹ Conversely, some of the research on pacifism and nonviolence has paid attention to anarchism and anarchists, as well as to the relationship between means and ends, the phenomenon of structural violence, and the dynamics of bottom-up organising and agency – all important themes for anarchism. ² Some scholars have also focused on anarcho-pacifism specifically, although without necessarily developing and discussing in detail the tensions and similarities between broader pacifism and anarchism in the first place (Antliff, 2015; Castelli, 2018; Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Laursen, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018a; Ostergaard, 1982; Pauli, 2015b).

Despite these various areas of overlap and shared territory, however, controversies between pacifists and anarchists have often surfaced along several recurring themes – especially complaints by anarchists about pacifism and nonviolence, but also sometimes, if less frequently, reservations by the latter about the former. Advocates of both, as well as the scholarship on them, could therefore benefit from a rigorous discussion of their disagreements. But the accusations they trade also typically reflect misperceptions and misunderstandings about each that are common in wider society. Staging a debate between them to map their fault lines and contiguities can therefore also offer those outside either tradition an opportunity to gain a fairer, more nuanced understanding of both.

There are several further reasons why the conversations between anarchism and pacifism can be of wider interest both within and beyond the academy. For one, what is ‘violence’, whether and when it might be acceptable, and how it should be controlled, are matters of debate across geographical contexts and political ideologies, including in social movements of various stripes and in scholarship about them. In the scholarship specifically, there is also much debate about the relative effectiveness of different movement strategies, but often overlooked in these discussions is the role played by political ideologies. Yet, many activists engaging in contemporary social movements – from Black Lives Matter and women’s rights to movements opposing war or focused on ecology or the arms trade, for example – identify as anarchists and/or pacifists. A map of the landscape shared by these two ideologies therefore provides a useful tool for both social movements activists and scholarship on them to navigate the positions advanced by pacifists and anarchists whether on strategy or on the internal politics of these movements, as well as to better locate their arguments alongside those working in coalition with them. Also of wider public interest are discussions concerning the way in which the international order is organised and enforced, what needs changing, how radically, to what, and how what is problematic about it should be resisted both morally and effectively. In other words, the concrete arguments that surface where anarchism and pacifism meet speak to both the scholarship and wider public debates about the contemporary political order, about varieties of political violence, and about methods of resistance and political change. Journeying through this landscape for those less familiar generates critical reflections and stimulates the political imagination when considering human civilisation and how to improve it.

What, then, are the core controversies between anarchism and pacifism? What are the main accusations levied by each of the other, and what rejoinders can one articulate rooted in the other in response? In this article, I first identify, present, and critically discuss three main anarchist qualms about pacifism: the perceived ineffectiveness of nonviolence; the origins and perceived compromises of pacifism and nonviolence that generate distrust among anarchists; and accusations that nonviolence has come to exert a censorial role on contemporary activism. In the second section, I turn to and critically discuss two main pacifist qualms with anarchism: anarchism’s historical and ongoing flirtations with violence; and the apparently excessive radicality of anarchist arguments. The third section then identifies and discusses the mutual resonances and shared characteristics between pacifism and anarchism, thus illustrating the expanse of territory they share. My aim is not to resolve the tensions that persist between the two, but to identify, articulate, and develop arguments rooted in each that address some of the qualms of the other, as well as arguments that resonate with one another. Ultimately, a key aim is to demonstrate that the accusations that pacifists and anarchists levy against one another are often grounded, if not in perhaps sometimes disingenuous misreadings, at least in shallow engagement, misunderstandings, or debatable empirical analysis. Both stand to gain from more rigorous mutual engagement, just as those outside them do from paying attention to their insights.

Before proceeding further, however, it should be noted that ‘pacifism’ and ‘nonviolence’ are not the same. There is a long history of scholars and activists justifiably differentiating one from the other whether for analytical or strategic reasons (Howes, 2013; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Lakey, 2001; Martin, 2008; Schock, 2003). Not all pacifists practice nonviolent activism, and not all advocates and practitioners of nonviolence identify as pacifists. ‘Pacifism’, as I put it in the editorial to the first issue of the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence (Christoyannopoulos, 2023a: 3),

usually describes an opposition to war and more generally to violence coupled with a commitment to methods consistent with that opposition, whereas ‘nonviolence’ usually points to a repertoire of methods at the narrow end, but also sometimes to the wider practices and virtues associated with these methods.

I also note, however, that both terms and their associated movements are historically ‘mutually imbricated’, as are some of their central concerns. Moreover, some of their advocates defend their use of both terms in the same breath in light of this proximity and these overlapping concerns (Clements, 2015; Fiala, 2020; Jackson, 2018b; Vinthagen, 2023). As will be obvious shortly, some of their anarchist detractors use the ‘pacifism’ and ‘nonviolence’ interchangeably too (Gelderloos, 2013a, 2018).

As the ensuing discussion also shows, a major difficulty with terms like ‘pacifism’, ‘nonviolence’, but also ‘violence’ is that their very use is contested, contextual, and political, their intended meaning sometimes explicit but also often implicit and yet pivotal in the argument (Duff, 2024; Frazer and Hutchings, 2019b). Political theory does not provide much help either, given that what counts as ‘violence’ is a matter of considerable debate there, too (Arendt, 1969; Bufacchi, 2005; Frazer and Hutchings, 2020; Harris, 1980). Anarchists and pacifists rarely refer to debates in political theory when having theirs anyway. My aim here, then, is not to resolve definitional differences between and within pacifism and anarchism with conceptual tools exogenous to their discussions, nor indeed to search for or impose definitions that could potentially gather consensus for these terms, but rather and where relevant to identify, illustrate, and reflect on their contestation and conceptual slipperiness.

Similarly, I do not intend to arbitrate on the distinctions between ‘pacifism’ and ‘nonviolence’. My primary focus is on pacifism, but the preference for nonviolent methods is a secondary and necessary corollary given the particular importance of violence in the debate between pacifism and anarchism. That said, for clarity, this article refers explicitly to both pacifism and nonviolence when the discussion does refer to both, whereas it explicitly names only one when the focus is specifically on one and not the other. Both the proximity of pacifism and nonviolence, and their subtle differences, will become more apparent as I map out the tensions between them and anarchism.

Anarchist qualms about pacifism

Controversies about pacifism are not infrequent in anarchist circles, whether that be in the late-19th century, around the First or Second World Wars, during the Cold War, or since, and each time those controversies have been coloured by their historical, geopolitical, and socioeconomic contexts. In most of these contexts, some anarchists reached anarchism through pacifism, but others distrusted such pacifist anarchists and/or pacifism more generally.

Three books have captured the core anarchist qualms about pacifism and nonviolence in recent decades: Churchill’s (2007 [1986]) Pacifism as Pathology, Gelderloos’ (2018 [2005]) How Nonviolence Protects the State, and his The Failure of Nonviolence (2013a). These have enjoyed wide circulation in anarchist circles, but it should be noted that they have also generated considerable debate and criticisms by anarchists (Collectif, 2019; Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b; sherbu-kteer, 2019). The critical discussion that follows builds on these anarchist reactions, on responses rooted in pacifism and nonviolence (Lakey, 2001; Martin, 2008; Pulley, 2022), and on the relevant scholarship beyond the direct responses to these specific publications.

Effectiveness

Anarchists have levelled a series of related accusations around the perceived ineffectiveness of nonviolence (Carter, 1978; Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Franks, 2006; Gelderloos, 2013a, 2018 [2005], 2020; Price, 2007; Richards, 1993; Ruins, 2002). The core of the argument is that nonviolence is not an effective tactic, and that this is borne out by a wide range of examples. It does not work, or at least what victories nonviolence can claim are limited and superficial, and it cannot work for the kind of expansive social change anarchists seek. Despite any apparent victories, oppression and domination continue, if under a different mask. Moreover, even when nonviolence apparently ‘works’, it is only when it is supplemented by violence or at least the threat of it. Unfortunately, therefore, violence is sometimes necessary and should be part of the anarchist repertoire. It is the only language oppressors understand. It is foolish to expect enough supporters of the status quo to change sides when confronted by activists ostensibly grounded in a higher morality. And it is ultimately suicidal. It is also particularly ineffective for, and arguably therefore even cruel to preach to, those who are already marginalised and vulnerable. Besides, violence is natural in self-defence.

Appeals to empirical evidence in this debate can be frustrating: each side can find examples of both effective campaigns using its preferred tactics and ineffective ones using the other’s, accuse the other of double standards, and dispute how ‘violent’ or ‘nonviolent’ the campaigns that displayed a variety of tactics were over time (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Collectif, 2019; Gelderloos, 2013a; Lakey, 2001; Martin, 2008; Nepstad, 2015; Sharp and Paulson, 2005; Zunes, 2023). Relatively lacking, until recently, were large scale aggregate empirical studies. Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011) Why Civil Resistance Works, with the associated dataset, has changed this. Coding and analysing 323 examples of violent and nonviolent resistance from 1900 to 2006, it concludes that nonviolent campaigns succeeded twice as often as violent ones, while also ushering outcomes more respectful of democracy and human rights. Some anarchists have questioned the scientific rigour of that study (Gelderloos, 2020), and some scholars have nuanced and queried some of its findings (see below), but on the whole, it has been widely praised, refined, and built upon in further studies (Celestino and Gleditsch, 2013; Chenoweth et al., 2018; Chenoweth and Cunningham, 2013; Chenoweth and Schock, 2015; Howes, 2013; Kalicha, 2019; Nepstad, 2015). It is also widely cited in activist circles.

Part of the controversy boils down to what is defined as ‘nonviolence’. Critics tend to assign a narrow range of options to it, sometimes limiting it to passive resistance. Advocates of nonviolence, however, tend to englobe under that term a much wider range of tactics, including quite adversarial ones and indeed tactics involving sometimes considerable damage to property, for example – basically almost anything up to and excluding direct physical violence against other human beings (Collectif, 2019; Feigenbaum, 2009; Govier, 2008; Jackson, 2020; Kalicha, 2020; Kuhn, 2013b; Orosco, 2018; Schock, 2013; Sharp, 1973). Particularly pertinent to this discussion is the growing scholarly attention paid to ‘unarmed collective violence’, a category of activism that straddles the divide between violence and nonviolence. Included here would be ‘vandalism, property destruction, rioting, [and] street fighting conducted without the use of weaponry (aside from improvised objects, like stones)’ (Chenoweth, 2023: 58), although to be clear and concrete, for some, this would include setting fire to vehicles and police stations, and throwing rocks, even Molotov cocktails, at policing forces. While the research on the effect of armed violence seems fairly conclusive regarding its frequently negative impact on campaign outcomes, there is vigorous debate among scholars on the effectiveness of ‘unarmed collective violence’, with some studies claiming that it enhances the chances of success (Anisin, 2020; Kadivar and Ketchley, 2018). But other studies disagree (including on how ‘violence’ is defined and measured in the first place), and on the whole, taking the scholarship in the aggregate, the empirical impact of ‘unarmed collective violence’ on campaign outcomes, to date, remains ambiguous (Chenoweth, 2023).

In any case, advocates of nonviolence also dispute the idea that nonviolence seeks to pacify or de-escalate tensions, arguing instead that it can involve deliberate confrontation, including sometimes illegal methods (Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Schock, 2003). Nor is nonviolence necessarily a ‘morality play’ through exemplary suffering – sometimes it is plainly about building and wielding collective power to extract concessions without relying on any ‘conversion’ of adversaries (Orosco, 2018; Pulley, 2022; Schock, 2013). The nonviolent activist toolkit is thus composed of a wide variety of potential actions, at the most confrontational end of which are found examples that some detractors might label ‘violent’ (because confrontational, for example, or damaging property, or against their interests) but that involve no direct physical harm to fellow human beings. To present the wide range of activist options as a binary where only the most pacifying activities are assigned to ‘nonviolence’, as some anarchist critics of nonviolence do, is therefore a misrepresentation.

Beyond such disputes about labelling and data, advocates of nonviolence (including anarchists) denounce as ‘romantic’ the prevalent imaginaries of revolutionary violence (Carter, 1978: 339; Llewellyn, 2020: 54; Woodcock, 1992: 93; see also Jackson, 2020). Violence does not equate with power (Jackson, 2020; Lakey, 2001). Effectiveness depends not on one’s capacity to deploy violence, but on how adversaries respond (Jackson, 2017, 2020; Wallace, 2017, 2020). Violence can trigger compliance, but also resistance. How adversaries respond is unpredictable. The assumption that violence is an effective instrument to achieve desirable ends might be deeply embedded in wider popular culture, so much so that even counter-cultural anarchists are taken with it, but it is one that pacifists have long questioned (Chae, 2023; Jackson, 2017; Jackson and Dexter, 2014).

Moreover, revolutionary violence leads down a path littered with grave risks and implications. Violent dissent often helps legitimise violent state repression (Carter, 1978; Jackson, 2020; Kinna, 2005). Not only does it ‘[result] in a coarsening of the moral fibre, a growing unscrupulousness in dealings with other people’ (Woodcock, 1992: 93), but it also paves the way for a cycle of violence and counter-violence that is ‘much harder to control than nonviolent action’ (Jackson, 2020: 24). Furthermore, one of the important contributions of pacifism is to insist that violent means are ‘constitutive’ of violent structures (Jackson, 2018b, 2020). Revolutionary violence frequently breeds authoritarianism, hierarchy, and increasing militarism – in marked contrast to anarchist aims and ideas (Carter, 1978; Collectif, 2019; Frazer and Hutchings, 2019b; Kalicha, 2020; Llewellyn, 2020; Miller, 1984; Oerter, 2015; Woodcock, 1992). Indeed, organised and collective violence is not as ‘natural’ as critics of pacifism often suggest anyway (Cady, 2010; Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Rai, 2011; Ryan, 2013). It is one thing to concede that violence might be legitimate as a last resort in individual self-defence, another to transplant that argument to wider groups and institutions. For a wider group to ‘defend’ itself violently when ‘under attack’ requires forward planning, including the production and provision of weapons, military training, cultural narratives about violence and about ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ – in short, a political economy that drifts towards and starts to resemble the kind of militaristic and hierarchical society loathed by anarchists. In that sense, violence does possibly ‘work’ for a stratification of society of the kind opposed by anarchists because it effectively maintains such a stratification. But using violence to try to precipitate anarchist aims will only strengthen and embed precisely what anarchists are opposing.

Besides, lest we forget, inflicting physical violence against fellow human beings is also quite simply disturbing, destructive and traumatic (Christoyannopoulos, 2020; Llewellyn, 2020). And it cannot be reversed. It dehumanises and brutalises both victims and perpetrators. In sum, not only is revolutionary violence empirically no more effective than nonviolence, but it is a tactic pregnant with many dangers. Hence Howes’ (2013: 438) conclusion that ‘the practitioners of violence are more often the tragic idealists than are the pacifists’.

Origins and compromises

Some anarchists express considerable distrust of pacifism and nonviolence based on the latter’s origins and sometimes ongoing compromises. Some, for example, view with suspicion the religious origins of pacifism and nonviolence, especially when it leads to arguments based on principles or morality (Churchill, 2007 [1986]). Many anarchists have after all been very critical of religion. And, for some, anarchism is not a primarily moral or philosophical position, but a militant tradition of class struggle (Franks, 2006; Kinna, 2019; Meltzer, 1996; Schmidt and Van der Walt, 2009). Some anarchists also worry that more radical pacifist impulses much too often end up with liberal and reformist compromises (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Gelderloos, 2013a; Meltzer, 1996), focused for instance on ‘diplomacy, international treaties, and supranational institutions’ (Kalicha, 2020: 32). More generally, anarchists denounce pacifists and nonviolent activists for often colluding with the state, whether in helping pacify rebellion, policing demonstrations, accepting government funding, granting the state its prized monopoly over the legitimate use of violence, or more broadly not challenging threateningly enough its continued domination and the ongoing suffering and exploitation which it underwrites (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Gelderloos, 2013a, 2018 [2005]; Richards, 1993; Ruins, 2002).

Relatedly, there is also sometimes an accusation that pacifism and nonviolence are bourgeois, middle class, and generally white preferences, emanating from and shielding positions of privilege, and at odds with more ‘class struggle’ streams of anarchism (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Franks, 2006; Gelderloos, 2013a, 2020; Pauli, 2015a; Rossdale, 2019; Ruins, 2002). It offers its advocates an opportunity to posture and project moral purity with minimal risk of harm (Churchill, 2007 [1986]). Some also accuse pacifism and nonviolence of being racist, for example ignoring ‘the color of most violence’ (Gelderloos, 2018 [2005]: 52), preaching with white condescension, letting people of colour do the dying in the global peripheries while fetishising Che Guevarra or the Zapatista but avoiding dangerous tactics for white activists back home (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Gelderloos, 2013a, 2018 [2005]; Ruins, 2002). Some anarchists furthermore label sexist any assumption that violence is masculine, and accuse advocates of pacifism and nonviolence of compromises with patriarchy by, for instance, taking away from victims of rape and abuse the option to fight back (Gelderloos, 2013a; Ruins, 2002).

On religious origins, even though historically advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have often emerged from religious backgrounds, and many still do, that is not always the case. Many are grounded in secular ontologies (Castelli, 2018; Cooper, 1991). Besides, anarchism can be religious too (Christoyannopoulos, 2009, 2010; Christoyannopoulos and Adams, 2017, 2018, 2020).

As for pacifism and nonviolence (whether religious or indeed secular) being overly principled and moralistic for some anarchists, clearly there are indeed arguments for them that are of that kind, but these in fact represent only part of the picture. For one, alongside ‘principled pacifism’ and ‘principled nonviolence’ are other variants including ‘pragmatic nonviolence’ (from which the justifications for many of those who embrace nonviolence, including many anarchists, tend to primarily emanate) and ‘pragmatic pacifism’, as well as ‘technological’, ‘ecological’, and ‘epistemological’ pacifism, to name but a few (Atack, 2012; Cady, 2010; Nepstad, 2015). It is a misrepresentation, therefore, to portray pacifism and nonviolence (religious or otherwise) as only principled or moralistic.

But what complicates the picture further is that there are also tensions and debates within anarchism about how much anarchism is or should be understood as a moral or philosophical position. Some anarchists are anarchists primarily on moral or philosophical grounds (Adams, 2023; Christoyannopoulos, 2020; Kinna, 2019; Woodcock, 1977). Others see anarchism for example as predominantly a theory and practice of class struggle syndicalism, and they can be so critical of ‘philosophical anarchists’ that they place them outside the anarchist tradition (Meltzer, 1996; Schmidt and Van der Walt, 2009; also discussed in Franks, 2006). Some anarchist criticisms of pacifism are rooted in that kind of anarchist soil, attacking what is actually just one variety of pacifism (the principled one) from an anarchist position that reflects only part of the anarchist landscape. But this overlooks important variants of both traditions. Both anarchism and pacifism can be principled and ethical, and both include varieties that are opposed to those same internal tendencies. The presentation of anarchism as opposed to pacifism because of the latter’s moralising thus rests on distorted and narrow readings of both traditions.

On liberal compromises, more radical pacifists and nonviolent activists readily admit that there are also many reformist counterparts, and that too often nonviolence has been used for timid attempts at reform rather than radical change (Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Lakey, 2001; Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2013). But, just like socialism has its anarchist radicals, nonviolent reformism also has its nonviolent radicals. ‘Violence’, in any case, ‘is not the badge of radicalness’ (Lakey, 2001: 22). As for pacifism’s historic proximity with liberalism, while there has been undeniable overlap in some of their arguments (e.g. on disarmament or international trade), and while the personal trajectories of some of their advocates have criss-crossed their respective territories, similar claims can be made for example concerning the proximity of pacifism and socialism broadly conceived, with anti-militarism and economic justice among the issues of sometimes overlapping interests (Castelli, 2018; Cooper, 1991; Fox, 2018). Pacifism and nonviolence do not necessarily imply compromises with liberalism (and their convergence with anarchism specifically is discussed below).

On colluding with the state, for one, many violent revolutionary movements have accepted funding from states, too (Martin, 2008). In any case, not all strands of pacifism and nonviolence seek to collaborate with the state, anarcho-pacifists and nonviolent anarchists providing obvious examples of nonviolent agitating to undermine it (Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018a; Pauli, 2015b). Nor does foregoing any violence in resistance have to logically imply conceding to the state the legitimacy of its violence anyway. More broadly, pacifism is not just a longing for peace, but also a critique of security assumptions and institutions, of the war machine, of a political and economic setup that so often slides towards violence steered and protected by state levers (Alexandra, 2003; Christoyannopoulos, 2022, 2023b; Jackson, 2021; Ryan, 2019). Advocates of nonviolence also argue that one intended potential effect of nonviolent resistance is to pull apart a state’s pillars of support (Chenoweth and Stephan, 2011; Llewellyn, 2020; Martin, 2008). By contrast, violent resistance can have the opposite effect, strengthening a state by giving its repressive apparatus greater perceived legitimacy and urgency (Chenoweth and Stephan, 2011; sherbu-kteer, 2019). Moreover, nonviolent activism is often accompanied by the development of alternative structures, thus providing examples of political organising independent of states (Graeber, 2002; Kalicha, 2020). Here again, therefore, anarchist accusations of collusion with the state rest on only partial or misguided understandings of pacifism and nonviolence.

On being bourgeois, white, middle class, maybe even racist and patriarchal, again, pacifists and nonviolent activists do not deny that this might apply to some, but they deny the sweeping characterisation. They point to the great number of nonviolent movements that have sprung across the world led and composed by people of colour (from Gandhi and King to Filipino People Power and anti-apartheid South Africa, among many), and to the nonviolent movements that have organised specifically against racism (Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Lakey, 2001; Ryan, 2013). They point to many nonviolent movements that have been driven by the economically marginalised and against economic marginalisation and structural violence (Lakey, 2001; Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2013). They point to the many women who have composed their movements, and the many feminist and equal rights campaigns that have intentionally embraced nonviolent methods (Martin, 2008; Ryan, 2013). Moreover, as mentioned above and to quote one response to Gelderloos, ‘virtually every pacifist’, only the most vehement absolutists excepted, ‘would admit outright that violence conducted in direct self-defense is justifiable’ – hence the accusation that they would all abandon victims of sexual violence to their abuser is unwarranted and rather incendiary (Kalicha, 2019; sherbu-kteer, 2019). What pacifists do generally contest is the presumption that violence is inevitable in many scenarios, short of the most acute where violent self-defence really might be the only remaining option, where a considerable range of responses short of somatic violence may still be both available and effective. All that said, many pacifist and nonviolent groups may well need to continue to work on their classism, racism, and patriarchy – but the same applies to violent groups, too (Chenoweth, 2021; Lakey, 2001; Nepstad, 2015; Orosco, 2018).

More broadly, regarding questions of ‘self-defence’, where pacifists also dissent from many others is in how willing and quick the latter can be to extend individual self-defence analogies to revolutionary violence or even war. Pacifists are much more stringent in limiting the range of scenarios where violence would be the only remaining option and could be acceptable, more likely to be sceptical about the potential effectiveness of violence, and quicker to worry about the wider consequences of accepting such arguments for the political economy and the wider political culture. Few pacifists and advocates of nonviolence would deny that injustice and oppression must be resisted – the crucial question is how (Jackson, 2020). Pacifist and nonviolent methods to do so have not been argued for and practised only by privileged white men in the Global North. It may be that many nonviolent anarchists in the Global North are often middle class, but even that is not universally so. Many anarchists of different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds across the world have advocated nonviolence, too. Nor is it necessarily intrinsically ‘working class’, or more respectful of diversity, to subscribe to violent resistance.

Moreover, few expect nonviolent resistance to be pain-free: much depends on the precise tactics adopted, but there are certainly repertoires of nonviolent action that can involve risks of significant potential harm to the activists, including prison, injury, or death (Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2003). But any such violence would be suffered, not inflicted, which is also precisely why some theorists speak of it as potentially ‘backfiring’ (Martin, 2005) on the oppressor as part of a political or moral ‘jiujitsu’ (Gregg, 1960; Sharp, 1973). Some nonviolent tactics do present minimal dangers and indeed apply minimal pressure for change, which might provide an opportunity for some to posture with minimal commitment, whereas violent tactics are inherently dangerous indeed, but it is also possible to campaign, effectively, facing significant personal risks, and nonviolently, in solidarity with activists against economic inequality, racism, and patriarchy across the globe.

Dogmatic censorship

One reason Churchill’s (2007 [1986]) and Gelderloos’ (2013a, 2018 [2005]) books have found such receptive audiences in anarchist circles is because of their central complaint that pacifism and nonviolence have come to reach a position of near hegemony in social movements by the turn of the 21st century, and, from there, their advocates have been working to control these movements, censoring more confrontational methods and activists, and generally behaving in an authoritarian, moralising, intolerant, and dogmatic manner (see also Dupuis-Déri, 2019; Franks, 2006; Gordon, 2008; Meltzer, 1996; Ruins, 2002). Their faith in their tactics is ‘cult’-like (Meltzer, in Franks, 2006: 52), ‘pathological’ even (Churchill, 2007 [1986]). They have willingly joined and reproduced mainstream framings of nonviolent activists as ‘good’ protestors, window-smashing ‘anarchists’ as ‘bad’, making the latter more vulnerable to repression while appointing themselves as the sensible interlocutors. They have ‘snitched’ on ‘violent’ demonstrators, filmed them, and ‘turned (them) over to the police’ (Gelderloos, 2013a, 144). In effect, they have been policing the boundaries of legitimate resistance (Rossdale, 2021). This has restricted the range of available tactics and imposed a homogeneity that reduces activist effectiveness. But effective activism requires a full ‘diversity of tactics’ because ‘we also need warriors’ (Jensen, in Churchill, 2007 [1986]: 15). The problem, then, is not necessarily nonviolence as such, but its hegemony and its repression of more combative and illegal tactics (although Gelderloos goes further and would rather do away with nonviolence entirely because for him it is an irretrievably problematic category).

However, behind such accusations often lays an assumption that the range of nonviolent tactics is small, and that these are often preferred out of a naïve attachment to principles. Yet, the repertoire of potential nonviolent tactics is much broader than many critics of nonviolence assume (Martin, 2008; Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2003). Sharp (1973) famously listed 198 methods ranging from symbolic protests (speeches, petitions, posters, leaflets, marches, picketing, teach-ins) to non-cooperation (consumer boycott, refusals to pay, industrial or general strikes, boycotting elections, slow compliance) to more confrontational intervention (civil disobedience, hunger strikes, sit-ins, nonviolent occupation). Moreover, and as already mentioned, many pacifist and nonviolent activists advocate their methods on ‘pragmatic’ rather than ‘principled’ grounds – not because they are deontologically superior, but because they are more effective (Ackerman and DuVall, 2000; Lakey, 2001, 2012; Mantena, 2012; Schock, 2003). No systematic large-N empirical evidence demonstrates conclusively that violent tactics are more effective than nonviolent ones, and the rather selective list of examples in Gelderloos (2013a) can be countered by studies such as Gamson (1975), Karatnycky and Ackerman (2005), and Chenoweth and Stephan (2011).

However, part of what makes this debate challenging is the slipperiness of a crucial word: violence. At the narrow end, it can be defined as physical harm against human beings, but one can extend that, with good arguments, to harming other living beings, destroying property, psychological harm, or structural socioeconomic and cultural policies, for example. In any of these cases, when the word is used, it tends to be to describe action that is disapproved of (Frazer, 2019; Frazer and Hutchings, 2019b; Gelderloos, 2013a; Gordon, 2008; Jackson, 2020; Rossdale, 2021; Ruins, 2002). Consequently, a critical (if sometimes only implicit) feature of debates about what is ‘violent’ or ‘nonviolent’ is the very contestation of these terms – whether in debates between and within anarchism and pacifism, or more broadly in debates about peace, war, and violence in the wider political landscape.

News outlets might therefore label smashing windows as ‘violence’, but not smashing by police of the limbs of the demonstrators who committed that property destruction. Gelderloos (2013a: 29) distrusts the word ‘violence’ so much that he calls for an end to its use, noting that he would rather name preferred tactics like property destruction ‘“combative”, “conflictive,” or “forceful”’ (see also Ruins, 2002). However, nonviolent activists do not necessarily call the destruction of property ‘violent’ either (Collectif, 2019; Lakey, 2012; Pulley, 2022; Rossdale, 2021). Some admittedly might, and to Gelderloos’ understandable frustration some might join in on doing so in the media, but others do not. Similarly, many anarchists who choose nonviolence also refuse the good/bad protester binary even if they are not enthralled by more aggressive tactics (Collectif, 2019). Either way, the destruction of corporate windows is a good example of a ‘combative’ action the labelling of which as ‘violent’ is contested and debated, including by nonviolent activists. Gelderloos places such action outside the small range of methods he groups under ‘nonviolence’, but there are nonviolent activists who claim such actions as part of their nonviolent repertoire. It is certainly possible for nonviolent action to be confrontational, indeed ‘coercive’, provided no direct physical harm is inflicted on human beings (Martin, 2008; Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2003). In other words, a wide range of methods exist which nonviolent activists would call ‘nonviolent’, but which are confrontational and which detractors may well denounce as ‘violent’.

In turn, this affects some of the debate about hegemony and effectiveness. Some anarchists contend that nonviolent tactics are only effective when there are more violent campaigners making nonviolent ones come across valuable interlocutors, or when there is a threat of violent escalation (Churchill, 2007 [1986]; Gelderloos, 2013b, 2018 [2005]; Price, 2007; Ruins, 2002). As already noted, some scholars concur, and the scholarly debate is vigorous and ongoing: while the empirical evidence demonstrating the negative impact of organised armed violence is mounting, the empirical research on the impact of ‘unarmed collective violence’ and on such ‘violent’ or ‘radical flank effect’ is conflicting and inconclusive (Anisin, 2020; Chenoweth, 2023; Chenoweth and Schock, 2015; Kadivar and Ketchley, 2018; Nimtz, 2016; Tompkins, 2015). A diverse repertoire including both softer and more militant tactics may well be more effective, hence restricting activism to a particularly narrow range of rather passive methods may indeed be ineffective. But this is not something that advocates of nonviolence necessarily contest, and certainly the more radicals among them, nonviolent anarchists included, can be comfortable with a wide range of methods, including particularly confrontational ones, provided no direct physical harm is inflicted on human beings, or at the very least provided no ‘collective violence’ is ‘armed’ – for both pragmatic and principled reasons (Kalicha, 2019; Lakey, 2001; Schock, 2003). That is where most advocates of nonviolence would draw the line. But a line does have to be drawn somewhere, as some of the nonviolent and anarchist critics of Gelderloos argue: torture, violence against children, or weapons of mass destruction, for example, would surely be tactics ruled out by even the most militant of anarchists (Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b; Lakey, 2001; Martin, 2008).

Perhaps, then, one reason why nonviolence has come to be so dominant a preference among activists is simply that most activists have come to prefer tactics that do not intentionally and directly physically harm other human beings. Advocates of pacifism and nonviolence may well sometimes be ‘smug and self-righteous’ (Lakey, 2001: 2). Some may well be quite principled and dogmatic. Some might be overzealous in trying to minimise confrontation. Some might have betrayed more confrontational comrades. And some might have decried ‘violent’ tactics such that their intervention would have restricted the range of nonviolent methods considered. But most would accept that a wide diversity of tactics is needed, albeit within limits, and even if getting consensus on these limits is difficult. Most anarchists hold a similar view. Hence, the wide acceptance of a ‘diversity of tactics’ across activist campaigns since the turn of the century, including among both anarchists and nonviolent activists. It may be that this debate is frequently rehearsed, that it typically features much disputing about examples some would call ‘violent’ and others not, and that translating theoretical adherence to diversity into consensus on actual actions on the ground can be challenging, but the conclusions of such debates tend to be similar across different contexts. That is, some will campaign particularly peacefully, others more confrontationally (within limits), hence a range of actions can be organised, sometimes around separate spaces, in mutual respect and solidarity (Dupuis-Déri, 2019; Franks, 2003; Gordon, 2008; Kinna, 2005, 2019; Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b; Lakey, 2001; Pauli, 2015b; Rossdale, 2021).

Reading Gelderloos, it seems clear he has sometimes experienced a betrayal of such solidarity. His consequent frustration is understandable. But his all-out attack against pacifism and nonviolence is ultimately disappointing. In the end, many scholars, advocates of nonviolence, and anarchists find his interventions on nonviolence too divisive and lacking in rigour (Kalicha, 2019; Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b; Lakey, 2001; Martin, 2008; Pulley, 2022; sherbu-kteer, 2019). These critics believe that his treatment of the theory and theorists of nonviolence is shallow and limited, the historiography selective, prone to double standards, and heavy on personal anecdotes, with the polemical tone unlikely to generate consensus. His assumption of a binary between nonviolent and illegal action ignores entire repertoires of civil disobedience. What he criticises, in fact, is primarily either ‘principled’ (Martin, 2008: 252) or ‘reformist’ and ‘bourgeois’ nonviolence (Kalicha, 2019: 25), mostly ignoring the long tradition of more radical and pragmatic equivalents. His books still point to trends, behaviours, and arguments that rightly require attention and discussion, hence anarchists still recommending them despite their flaws, but many in the activist milieu are already aware of, and already working on, precisely the challenges he sweepingly frames as fatal to nonviolence.

Ultimately, the disagreements between anarchist critics like Churchill and Gelderloos and advocates of pacifism and nonviolence might boil down to slightly different aims and assumptions. Those championing confrontational methods or even violence seem intent on destabilising the current order, assuming that with enough targeted force it can be brought down. Those advocating nonviolence seem more concerned with broader public opinion, keener not to scare away potential supporters while still aiming to compel authorities to make concessions. Placing limits on resistance will generate frustrations for those subscribing to the former. The adoption of activist methods too easily prone to be labelled ‘violent’ and scary by much of the population will generate frustrations for those subscribing to the latter (Collectif, 2019; Kuhn, 2013b; Martin, 2008). Pacifist and nonviolent activists could arguably be more cautious when condemning certain forms of resistance as ‘violent’, and might need to be open to more confrontational nonviolent methods to enhance effectiveness, but the dominance of nonviolence in activist circles may be a reflection of a wider consensus in favour of such methods among activists across different contexts.

Pacifist qualms about anarchism

Criticisms of anarchism by advocates of pacifism and nonviolence are not articulated as frequently as anarchist qualms about pacifism. When they are, they tend to rest on rather common (albeit often misguided) understandings of anarchism, and sometimes reservations about particularly combative tactics.

Violence

The biggest unease advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have with anarchism concerns anarchist violence, understood here as the direct physical injuring or killing of other human beings in the name of anarchism (Castelli, 2018; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Lakey, 2001, 2012; Martin, 2008). The association of anarchism with violence can be traced to the anarchist wave of terrorism of the late-19th century, although there have been some, if rare, examples of anarchists either sympathising with or performing acts of violence since (Jensen, 2004; Kalicha, 2019; Kinna, 2019; Miller, 1984; Richards, 1993; Ruins, 2002; Woodcock, 1977). Some anarchists, echoing Fanon, laud the ‘liberating’ and ‘uplifting’ effects of violent resistance (Gelderloos, 2013a, 2018 [2005]; Ruins, 2002) – ignoring, however, the dehumanisation it fosters, the way this limits ‘empowerment’ to the younger and abler-bodied, or indeed the traumatic consequences of violence (including for perpetrators) which even Fanon had concerns about, let alone the fact that it might be participation in resistance, whether violent or not, which is what is ‘empowering’ (Jackson, 2020; Llewellyn, 2020). In any case, even though most anarchists adopt methods that either are deliberately or happen to be ‘nonviolent’ most of the time, there are anarchists who cross the threshold beyond what advocates of pacifism and nonviolence consider acceptable. And as already covered, some anarchists hold explicitly ‘nonviolent’ forms of activism (especially at the softer, more reformist, or liberal end) in contempt anyway (Kalicha, 2019; Kuhn, 2013b).

Most anarchists and researchers on anarchism have argued ad nauseam, however, that the spectre of threatening bomb-throwing anarchists lurking in the shadows is a caricature as old as it is ill-informed. The 1890s, in particular, did see a wave of targeted anarchist killings of members of the establishment – mainly politicians, royalty, and economic elites (Bantman, 2019; Jensen, 2004; Miller, 1984). Even then, however, only a tiny minority of anarchists took part in such killings. Moreover, the total number of victims, in the end, was in the low hundreds – fewer than some single 21st-century terrorist attacks, even though advocates of pacifism and nonviolence (among others) will of course deplore every such victim. But these acts of anarchist terrorism, already then, were stirred into a moral panic. Claims were made of an international anarchist conspiracy that never was (most anarchist terrorists acted alone, inspired by others who had done the same). The fear of anarchist terrorism was stoked by the mass media (a recent invention) and in popular culture, and used to justify repressive measures including media censorship, anti-trade union legislation, the expansion of secret services, and unprecedented levels of police collaboration across borders. The words ‘terrorism’ and ‘anarchism’ came to be widely used and so closely associated that sometimes they would be used interchangeably. Anarchists were portrayed as craving violence and chaos. All this served the interests of the establishment – an establishment otherwise at ease with violence when it came to the repression of domestic dissent or to international wars.

To this day, commentaries equating anarchism with violence and chaos are common, ignoring that only a small number of anarchists have ever preached direct physical violence against human beings, and ignoring the content and details of anarchist theory and ideology. The case nowadays, however, rarely rests on evidence of terrorist violence. Rather, the ‘violence’ decried by contemporary critics of anarchist violence usually refers to black bloc tactics and broken corporate windows. Whether smashing windows is ‘violent’ has been discussed earlier – it is certainly not violence in the sense of direct physical harm against human beings. As for black bloc tactics, it is worth noting first that the black and concealing aesthetic is primarily embraced for anonymity (because the activists are masked) and theatrical visibility (as a combative presence). The tactics that are then adopted are usually unashamedly confrontational, but not intended as an echo of the anarchist terrorists of old, nor necessarily hinging on violence against human beings. When black blocs do commit violence, the typical targets are private property as well as, admittedly, riot police, including aggressive pushback and throwing of projectiles. Black bloc tactics certainly confront ‘nonviolence’ with its limits, and throwing projectiles at police is an example of where the limit is crossed. It is somatic, physical violence against other human beings. But this is also some distance back from the terrorist tactics of the late-19th century, and (to my knowledge) no policing officer has ever been killed in such contexts. Besides, even though black blocs often involve many anarchists, they can attract many non-anarchists too. Indeed, the rushed equation of any black bloc with ‘anarchy’ is another example of the kind of hasty and partisan framing that anarchists have faced for over a century (Collectif, 2019; Gelderloos, 2013a; Gordon, 2008; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Kuhn, 2013b).

In any case, there is plenty of internal critique and debate among anarchists about the ‘violence’ and favourability of different tactics (Frazer and Hutchings, 2019a; Jensen, 2004; Kalicha, 2019; Kinna, 2005, 2019; Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b; Williams, 2019). For that matter, other ideologies including conservatism, fascism, liberalism, and socialism have demonstrated much lower thresholds when it comes to justifying violence in theory or indeed inflicting it in practice (Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Miller, 1984). Hence, the observation relayed by Kalicha (2020: 16) that anarchism might be the emancipatory tradition (pacifism excepted) most attached to a critique of violence and to the development of alternatives. Moreover, anarchists advocate much more than just confrontational tactics when it comes to civil unrest: they preach and practice plenty of bottom-up community organising as well, and when it comes to acts of resistance they preach and practice almost every one of the 198 methods listed as ‘nonviolent’ by Sharp. In other words, even if many anarchists might be more comfortable with more confrontational tactics than advocates of pacifism and nonviolence, sometimes even favouring physical violence (thus going too far for the latter), there remains an immense overlap when it comes to anarchist and nonviolent tactics in both theory and practice. The concerns advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have about anarchist violence, although not groundless, should not therefore lead to overlooking the vast territory the two traditions otherwise share on the question of political tactics.

Radicality

The other main qualm advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have about anarchism, whether sometimes explicit or often more implicit, concerns the (for them, excessive) radicality of its broader analysis (Castelli, 2018; Cooper, 1991; Cortright, 2008) – similarly to how supporters of pragmatic nonviolence sometimes view as lacking in realism those preaching principled nonviolence (Clements, 2015). For many advocates of pacifism and nonviolence, the state is ultimately necessary to preserve order and to implement a progressive agenda. It is a key stakeholder, indeed the institution they are often addressing either directly or indirectly. Moreover, proposals for change that are too radical or anarchistic risk scaring off potential converts.

The anarchist rejoinder, without plunging too far here into the deep wells of anarchist theory, is that the international order grounded in the Westphalian state system is leading to ecological breakdown and responsible for ongoing economic inequality and instabilities, growing militarism, and much violence whether domestic or international. Put differently, states in the international order either cause violence or are central vectors for it. They monopolise and legitimise it. Moreover, anarchists have been worrying about ‘structural violence’ a century before peace studies scholarship came to pay closer attention to it (Galtung, 1964, 1969). Anarchists understand the concerns advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have about direct physical violence, but also insist that, to understand why such violence erupts where it does, in other words to diagnose the deeper causes of such violence and to work to eradicate it effectively, requires a deeper critical analysis of the structural dynamics – political, economic, cultural, and so on – that set the scene for it, and the factoring into the equation of what has come to be described as ‘structural violence’. From there begins a fuller anarchist analysis of intersecting structures of domination and oppression ultimately underwritten by state violence. Advocates of pacifism and nonviolence truly concerned by violence, anarchists would argue, ought to follow them down these anarchist paths of analysis as well (Franks, 2006; Gelderloos, 2013a; Kalicha, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018a; Richards, 1993).

And many actually do. At the more radical end of pacifism and nonviolence, for instance, can be found critiques of capitalism, structural violence, police violence and the carceral system that reverberate with those of anarchists (Fiala, 2020; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018a; Väyrynen, 2023; Vinthagen, 2023). Some pacifists have also long worried about not just the violence of war, but about the broader ‘war system’: the military-industrial complex, the wider militaristic culture and political economy, and the ways in which the race to permanent readiness to fight the next war leaks back onto society and indeed ends up producing self-fulfilling results (Alexandra, 2003; Christoyannopoulos, 2022, 2023b; Dobos, 2020; Hutchings, 2018; Jackson, 2018c; Ryan, 2019). Some pacifists find such analyses too far-reaching and would rather work within the current system to minimise the risks of violence, but others follow anarchists at least up to a point on their journey across deeper systemic critiques.

A further anarchist rejoinder to such worries of excessive radicality consists in pointing out that more moderate or liberal pacifist initiatives have often ended up as convenient window-dressing with little impact in actually preventing war and militarism: disarmament initiatives have had only marginal effects on arms races, international treaties have had a limited impact in regulating or minimising conflicts, the impact of international arbitration mechanisms to date has been negligible, and so on. Similarly, nonviolent campaigns that have focused on more reformist or moderate goals could be said to have achieved only largely superficial change: people of colour in the United States after the Civil Rights movement still face racism daily, be it crude, institutional, or subtly weaved into the fabric of wider socioeconomic processes; similarly for post-apartheid South Africa; the Marcos dynasty and its clients has regained control of post-People Power Philippines; Indians post-Gandhi might be notionally independent but within a neocolonial economic system that still benefits a minority to the detriment of the rest; and so on. Gelderloos, for instance, flatly downplays the outcomes of such pacifist and nonviolent campaigns. Other anarchists have pushed back on the categorical dismissal, arguing that although changes have rarely been sufficient, a fair analysis requires the nuanced recognition of limited achievements (Kuhn, 2013a, 2013b). Either way, anarchists still argue that those pacifist and nonviolent campaigns that have been more moderate and reformist, even when successful, have barely tinkered at the margins of the problems they ostensibly addressed, leaving deeper structural problems largely unresolved.

Whether what anarchists have experimented with and propose as solutions can be adopted by humanity at scale is a matter for debate, but the hesitations that advocates of pacifism and nonviolence (or indeed anyone else) might have about anarchist solutions does not invalidate or preclude potential sympathy for the anarchist critique of the current international order in the first place. Anarchism might offer an analysis that is more radical than many would countenance, but it might be a valid and urgent analysis of the contemporary condition of humanity worth hearing nonetheless – including obviously by advocates of pacifism and nonviolence.

Mutual resonances

Beyond the qualms that anarchism and pacifism (and nonviolence) hold about each other, and as already hinted by their respective rejoinders, their landscapes include much potentially fertile shared territory. It is unsurprising therefore that many pacifists and advocates of nonviolence have extended their analysis towards anarchist conclusions, and that many anarchists have embraced nonviolent tactics. In contexts as varied as European anti-militarism in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, in the Catholic Worker movement or other Christian anarchist communities, among the many who have been inspired by Tolstoy and Gandhi, in the anti-nuclear and anti-Vietnam War movements of the Cold War, or in campaigns against arms trading or for prison abolition, in other words, across different contexts and adapted to them, one can encounter anarchist-leaning pacifists, pacifist-leaning anarchists, as well as some who are just as passionately committed to both (‘anarcho-pacifists’ or ‘nonviolent anarchists’), and others whose position effectively borrows from both but who choose not to use explicitly words like ‘anarchism’, ‘pacifism’, or ‘nonviolence’ (Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Kalicha, 2020; Lakey, 2001; Ostergaard, 2016; Vinthagen, 2023; Woodcock, 1992). Measuring exactly how much any particular person borrows from each can quickly become pernickety and is an exercise of interest more for detailed biographical studies and historiographies, past and future. Of more interest in rounding off the present mapping of the landscape they share, and illustrating the potential scope for further convergence, is an identification of their strongest mutual interests, resonances, and logical overlaps. These fall into two main categories: their critique of the current order, and their proposals to change it.

It is obvious from some of the above that pacifist and anarchist insights about state violence, the war system, and militarism resonate with one another. For instance, a pacifist critique of violence can easily and logically develop into a critique of the state structures that inflict violence, including the military apparatus but also violent policing and the prison-industrial complex. Advocates of pacifism and nonviolence have thus campaigned against capital punishment and for radical reforms to the justice system and policing. Pacifists might not all ultimately wish to do away with the state, but their critique of state violence echoes that of many anarchists (Castelli, 2018; Cervera-Marzal, 2012; Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Fiala, 2018a, 2020; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018b).

The pacifist critique of militarism also resonates with anarchist concerns about the broader political economy and the interests it serves, hence their cross-pollination in campaigns against specific wars, arms trading, the arms industry, and broader militarism. Anarchists have, for example, long decried how armies supposedly composed to guard against foreign enemies often end up deployed to repress domestic populations. The military-industrial complex is of concern to pacifists because of its propensity for war and because its militaristic and authoritarian culture and assumptions leak onto wider society, but it is also an anarchist exhibit to illustrate both the dynamics of interaction between political and economic elites, and how the broader system works to maintain the status quo (Castelli, 2018; Christoyannopoulos, 2022; de Ligt, 1989; Galtung, 1990; Kalicha, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018b; Pauli, 2015b; Rai, 2011; Ryan, 2019).

The critique of structural violence that some advocates of pacifism and nonviolence articulate also treads on territory long cultivated by anarchists. Moreover, this critique extends beyond a focus on economic dynamics only. Just as advocates of pacifism and nonviolence and indeed the broader scholarship in peace studies have, for instance, come to reflect on the structural violence of not just capitalism but also patriarchy and racism, anarchists had been labouring those issues for decades already (Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Galtung, 1964, 1969, 1990; Honeywell, 2021; Kalicha, 2020; Llewellyn, 2018a; Vinthagen, 2023).

The other major area of overlapping territory between anarchism and pacifism and nonviolence relates to their similar analysis of the importance of what anarchists frequently call ‘prefiguration’, that is, approaching activist means as ends-in-the-making. Both traditions have elaborated a range of similar arguments about how the dichotomy between means and ends is problematic and self-defeating, how means must be compatible with and indeed provide an example of the ends beings sought, hence why activist methods require such careful consideration. Moreover, both traditions offer not just extensive theoretical reflections on the matter, but a vast number of empirical examples and practices to reflect upon and seek inspiration from (Cady, 2010; Carter, 1978; Cervera-Marzal, 2012; Christoyannopoulos, 2022; Fiala, 2018a; Gordon, 2008; Jackson, 2021; Kalicha, 2019, 2020; Pauli, 2015b, 2017; Raekstad, 2018; Vinthagen, 2023).

One final characteristic of both traditions is worth observing in conclusion: both are often dismissed out-of-hand as naïve, and consequently given insufficient serious consideration (Cady, 2010; Carter, 1978; Fiala, 2013, 2018a, 2020; Jackson, 2017, 2018b; Jespersen, 2020; Thaler, 2019). In both cases, these dismissals are based on the presumed (but mistaken) absoluteness of their views as well as on deeply ingrained (but questionable) assumptions – about the instrumental efficacy of violence and how it is ‘human nature’ in the case of pacifism, and about the need for a state to maintain peace and order in the case of anarchism. Both traditions are thus often ridiculed as ‘utopian’ – even though ‘utopias’ serve as much to criticise current setups as they do to imagine alternatives, and this is something that both traditions perform extensively too (Brinn, 2020; Thaler, 2019). Furthermore and somewhat ironically, anarchists dismiss pacifism and nonviolence as naïve based on these very same widespread assumptions, and vice versa. In other words, not only are both typically rejected as naïve in wider society, but they also do that to each other – compounded perhaps by classist suspicions and distrust, of pacifism by some anarchists as middle-class naivety, and of anarchism by some pacifists as working-class idealism. Advocates of either might do well, therefore, to recall their experiences in confronting those who dismiss them too quickly when considering the other, not least given the potential contribution that further labouring their shared territory can make to both ideological traditions and to the political campaigns their activists are addressing to all those beyond them.

Conclusion

Anarchist qualms about the effectiveness of nonviolence seem empirically questionable. Anarchists might be justified in distrusting some of the origins and compromises made by advocates of pacifism and nonviolence, but many of the latter share this unease, too. Social movement campaigns might benefit from advocates of pacifism and nonviolence approaching more confrontational tactics with greater openness and humility, but the prevalence of nonviolent methods might reflect wider social preferences rather than calculated and wilful censorship. Conversely, pacifist worries about anarchist compromises with violence are understandable, but such concerns often rest on caricatures and misunderstandings, and should not occlude the much wider common ground between pacifists and anarchists on activist methods. And even if anarchist analysis might seem too radical for many pacifists and advocates of nonviolence, the latter might stand to gain from exploring anarchist arguments given the track record of more moderate proposals so far, and given the trajectory of the global political economy.

In any case, where it does happen, the coalescing of the two traditions radicalises pacifism and commits anarchism to nonviolent tactics. Their shared theoretical landscape is one that yields a systematic and consistent critique of violence and a sharp reflective analysis of the methodological challenges in campaigning for a just peace. Two main warnings are prominent for those who visit this landscape to take home: against compromises (by pacifists or others) with top-down political institutions, and against compromises (by anarchists or others) with violence to achieve political change.

The conversations between anarchism and pacifism can also therefore push forward discussions in cognate political traditions and debates. The wider socialist tradition, for example, has a long history of activist and scholarly debates concerning the effectiveness and morality of competing political tactics, including the possible use of violence, as well as the role of the state as an agent of change. The conversations on these themes between pacifists and anarchists clear a terrain from which socialist activists and scholars can collect fruitful arguments to critically reevaluate some of their dominant assumptions and sharpen their understanding of the comparative effectiveness of competing tactics.

The above reflections on violence and on the international order also speak to the liberal and just war traditions – unsurprisingly, given their proximity with pacifism (Christoyannopoulos, 2022). Liberal institutionalism and the broader liberal tradition, for instance, focus their work for progressive change and peace through established institutions. Just war theory undergirds international laws of war and their corresponding institutions, and remains the prevailing moral compass to determine when political violence might be legitimate. Both will find in the territory shared by pacifism and anarchism an invitation to reconsider both their trust in established institutions as drivers of progress and in top-down enforcement mechanisms, not least when it facilitates the embedding of a military-industrial culture and industry.

As for those beyond these proximate traditions, questions about peace, violence, and redressing injustices go to the heart of the political and of the tensions between the political and the international, as evident from political theory to peacebuilding scholarship and practice. If war is ‘politics by other means’, then the conversations between anarchism and pacifism expose politics as ‘war by other means’, offering insights into the continuity between the domestic and international behaviour of states. ³ Heard together, anarchist warnings about political structures and pacifist warnings about war and militarism emphasise the dangers of political centralisation and war-readiness in the name of peace. Labouring the terrain shared by pacifism and anarchism can thus stimulate critical reflection on the international order and on theories and practices of political change. It can also help reflect on deeply held, widespread, yet ultimately questionable assumptions both about the efficacy and morality of violence and about how to best design political architectures. And it provides those less familiar with pacifism and anarchism a better understanding of the content of these ideologies and how they influence the input of the many activists associated with them within a wide diversity of social movements.

There are clearly tensions between pacifism and anarchism, but listening to them and to each other past initial suspicions opens ground for potentially fruitful further cross-pollination and shared journeys, and can help inspire others having similar debates on more distant landscapes. Perhaps it is unsurprising, therefore, that people concerned about violence and injustice have been attracted to both pacifism and anarchism across a variety of historical and geographical contexts. Given that the phenomena that worry both traditions – violence, militarism, domination in various guises, socioeconomic exploitation – do not seem to show much sign of weakening, both their advocates and those outside them stand to gain from further labouring their shared territory.