Explaining the shifting forms of political violence of the Brigate Rosse: a sociospatial approach

The academic literature has mainly focused on either conflicts radicalization or de-escalation, but little reflection went into how violence shifts in degree and forms. Yet, analyzing how political violence shifts from one form to another is crucial for understanding the dynamics of armed groups. In this paper I look to illustrate the agency of the BR in its attempt to build a semi-clandestine type of armed group. Such an attempt to build relations with specific local communities resulted in a failure, for a number of reasons that this paper will investigate, and transformed the BR in the following years in a clandestine armed group. I conclude with a discussion of how a sociospatial approach enhances a new reading of the BR empirical case and an analysis of the study’s theoretical implications for our understanding of the relationship between state institutions, armed groups and local social constituencies.