Paper short abstract:

Political violence is often portrayed as symptomatic of dysfunctional political systems and antithetical to political order. Building on ethnographic data of labourers in Dhaka city, this presentation challenges this view, demonstrating how deeply entrenched political violence can be.

Paper long abstract:

Political violence is often analysed through events such as demonstrations, bombings and killings. These are portrayed as symptomatic of dysfunctional political systems and antithetical to political order. This presentation argues that political violence is far more deeply entrenched than such images would suggest. In societies where political order is contingent on the rent seeking of diverse violence specialists, violence can be inherent to socio-economic and political relations, and constitutive of political order. These arguments will be developed through the case of labourers in Dhaka city.