# Coercion, Violence, and Nonviolence

Coercion shapes action through threatened cost. Violence directly damages bodies or material capacity, while legal, economic, administrative, and social sanctions may coerce without physical force. Political analysis must not romanticize either order or rupture.

Nonviolent campaigns can widen participation, create dilemmas for repression, and encourage defections; they can also be suppressed, fragmented, or ignored. The 3.5 percent observation is not a law. Armed resistance, terrorism, state force, occupation, and war require precise definitions, conduct-level analysis, and international-law context. Protected belief, protest, and association are not violent extremism.
