Mapping the landscape between pacifism and anarchism: Accusations, rejoinders, and mutual resonances
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241257806 |
| Author | Alexandre Christoyannopoulos |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241257806
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 407 –429
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13691481241257806
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Mapping the landscape
between pacifism and
anarchism: Accusations,
rejoinders, and mutual
resonances
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos
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.
Keywords
anarchism, anarcho-pacifism, nonviolence, pacifism, violence
Introduction
Pacifism and anarchism share some territory and have cross-pollinated in various histori-
cal 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 criti-
cally discussing the accusations, potential rejoinders and mutual resonances, and with a
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
Corresponding author:
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Department of International Relations, Politics and History, School of Social
Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK.
Email: a.christoyannopoulos@lboro.ac.uk
1257806BPI0010.1177/13691481241257806The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsChristoyannopoulos
research-article2024
Original Article
408The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
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 lit-
erature 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 com-
mented 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 nec-
essarily 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 paci-
fism can be of wider interest both within and beyond the academy. For one, what is ‘vio-
lence’, 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 move-
ment 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 land-
scape 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 paci-
fists 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 interna-
tional 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.
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting