When is political violence justified?

[Thumpalumpacus]

There's a simple difference: military action is predicated on violence. Civil discourse is not, typically. Unless you want to emulate Sudan or Syria.

 peaceable dialogue and military violence are two points on a continuum of kinetic interactions.   Where on the continuum a party find it suitable to be usually depends on what lower points has been shown to be ineffective for the pursuit of its goals, or have otherwise been close off to it.    Very often the parties to the same interaction perceive themselves to be on different points of the continuum.      Sometimes one party insist the  other party meet it at the point the first party’s choosing knowing that point puts the other party at a disadvantage and thus maximize’s own side’s leverage and chances for success.     So there really is often not any meaningful simple difference.

Again, politics need not, and usually does not, involve violence. Equivocating the two is either a misunderstanding or deliberate obtuseness.

Be it known that I'm not arguing that all political violence is wrong. I'm arguing that there's a little more nuance to it than "war is an extension of politics" in this context.

[Anomalocaris]

Whether politics need to involve violence depends on the hardness of the stances of each side, the perceived criticality of satisfactory outcome for each side,  the perception of the sincerity and willingness to compromise of each side, the resources for peaceful and non-peaceful means possessed by each side, and equally importantly but subtly the history of the past maneuvers carried out by each side.    

there is no blanket truth in “politics need not involve violence”.  

political violence is often the result of one side being certain the other side dare not commit violence, or think it will win in any violent confrontation, and accordingly proceeding in apparently peaceful ways to closing off all avenues of compromise that would forestall violence in the expectation of attaining greater rewards then is possible though compromise by forcing the other side to either capitulate before violence stage is reached, or defeating the other side should the other side resort to violence first.

[Thumpalumpacus]

there is no blanket truth in “politics need not involve violence”.  

Yeah, that's quite my point. "Need not" is neither requiring nor exclusionary.

But it's pretty plain here that we're talking about civic politics and not Clausewitzian maxims. He was not, after all, talking about internal strife in his opus.

[Anomalocaris]

I agree political violence, especially if it occurs with fractions intermeshed in an interdigitated fashion rather than in a civil war like manner with clear front lines, can have lasting effects  on the societies qualitatively different from nonviolent political strife.   but that is the external effect.

The internal mechanisms and processes that pushes the discourse towards and then past the point of violence, can often in my opinion be scarcely indistinguishable from habitual mechanisms and processes that had long operated in the peaceful antecedent.   It is often only when things have gone well beyond the point of no return that those whose interest is not in violence wakes up to the the impending and by then unavoidable disaster.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Simply because something can become violent is no reason to assume violence in the process is normal.