Pure Antecedents: beliefs that are only logical antecedents and never logical consequents of another belief in the system;
Intermediate Beliefs: beliefs that are both logical antecedents and logical consequents of other beliefs in the system;
Pure Consequents: beliefs that are only logical consequents and never logical antecedents of other beliefs in the system.
Figure 8 presents a simple example.
Figure 8. Example of a simple belief system.
These beliefs identify the beginning, middle, and end of belief chains. They indicate how reasoning processes begin, proceed, and end. Since beliefs address what motivates human behavior (see “Belief Typology”), pure antecedents, intermediate beliefs, and pure consequents provide in-depth knowledge about the underlying structures of human behavior. Specifically, pure antecedents can indicate what triggers the reasoning processes motivating certain behavior. Intermediate beliefs can show what constitutes the micro-level mechanisms underlying the behavior. Finally, pure consequents can identify the behavior itself. In the following analysis, pure antecedents and intermediate beliefs identify the microlevel mechanisms motivating people to engage in political violence, whereas pure consequents identify the behavior itself.
Belief Systems Related to Political Violence and Nonviolent Activism
This book investigates belief systems about political violence. Political violence is a particular type of behavior. Given the discussion so far, it is not immediately obvious how a type of behavior can be addressed by beliefs. It is also unclear what the belief contexts of beliefs about political violence may be. This section clarifies these points. Specifically, it shows how political violence can be represented by beliefs, and provides thoughts on possible belief contexts motivating beliefs about political violence.
Beliefs Addressing Violent and Nonviolent Activism
There are two types of beliefs that can address political violence or nonviolent activism: beliefs that address things that have a material existence in the external word (Type 1) and beliefs that describe abstract ideas that may be observable (Type 3). There is an additional type of belief I discuss in the following section: beliefs that address decisions to perform certain actions.
Beliefs of Type 1 address something that has a material existence in the external world. They are based on people’s ability to store in memory the things they observe in the world. Drawing on Alfred Schütz, it is not only possible to store those things in memory but also to generalize them into types (in the order thing → type) (Schütz 1973, drawing on Max Weber’s ideal types).15 Types are generalizations that indicate not only the “factual existence” of things but their “typical being-thus-and-so” (230). Their configuration establishes meaning-contexts in which certain things can be understood and meaning be imposed on entire situations. For example, “four-footed, wags its tail, barks” establishes a meaning-context that, together with a “theme” such as “bites,” can provide a meaning structure for a situation where somebody is bitten by a dog (231).
The typology provided by Schütz provides helpful insight about how beliefs can address political violence or nonviolent activism. Specifically, it suggests that beliefs can address certain things in the world that have a configuration of “typical beings” that can be generalized into “political violence” and “nonviolent activism,” in the order things → types → political violence; things → types → nonviolent activism. In the Introduction, I defined three types of things that together can be considered “political violence”: (1) application of physical force, (2) civil perpetrator, and (3) state target. I have also defined three types of things that together can be considered “nonviolent activism”: (1) application of a means that is not physical force, (2) civil perpetrator, and (3) state target. The first type can be a thing like bombing, shooting, hitting (political violence), or protesting, participating in a sit-in, or writing a newspaper article (nonviolent activism). The second type can be a “thing” like Muslim Brother or a member of German Socialist Student Union (violent and nonviolent activism); the third type can be a “thing” like the prime minister or the building of parliament (violent and nonviolent activism).
All these things can be addressed by the propositional contents of beliefs. The following are some examples:
B1 “I believe that a man is shooting the prime minister.”
B2 “I believe that a group of people is planting a bomb in the Ministry of Interior.”
B3 “I believe that a person is beating up a policeman.”
These examples show that beliefs can represent various things belonging to the mentioned types. They also show that belief systems representing certain things of the same type might at first sight appear very different from each other—for example, systems with beliefs about planting a bomb versus systems with beliefs about hitting, or systems about shooting versus systems about throwing stones. This indicates that the typology allows the researcher to generalize these seemingly different things and to identify belief systems about violent and nonviolent activism that are comparable (Chapter 4 is dedicated to this task).
Table 6 gives an overview of the configuration of the types and examples of things that can be generalized into violent and nonviolent activism. It is moreover possible that beliefs address violent and nonviolent activism as types, rather than as things or configuration of types. Type in this sense adds a level of abstraction to the terminology used above (so that things → subtypes [formerly types] → types [political violence, nonviolent activism]) and indicates that it is also immediately possible for humans to abstract from the things they see to identify belief systems about “political violence” and “nonviolent activism.” Some examples of beliefs that address political violence or nonviolent activism as types are
Table 6: Beliefs Representing Violent and Nonviolent Activism
B4 “I believe that there is political violence.”
B5 “I believe that Ahmed engages in nonviolent activism.”
B6 “I believe that some people engage in violent and nonviolent activism.”
Since types are abstractions of things, the beliefs that address violent or nonviolent activism as types are beliefs that address abstract ideas (beliefs of Type 3).16
Belief Contexts Related to Beliefs About Violent and Nonviolent Activism
Belief systems also allow the study of the belief contexts17 connected with the beliefs addressing violent and nonviolent activism.18 The following is an example of a belief chain addressing political violence in a certain context:
B1 I believe that Peter is facing a person in a state uniform.
B2 I believe that Peter is shouting at the person.
B3 I believe that the person is shouting back at Peter.
B4 I believe that Peter is hitting the person in the state uniform.
The belief context is represented by B1, B2, B3, which represent a situation in which a civilian has a quarrel with a state employee. This is recognizable from the following “things” that can be abstracted into types:
| 1. thing: “Peter” (B1, B2, B3, B4) | type: civilian |