20世纪60年代中晚期，世界性的政治暴力运动的兴起，促使学者们研究政治暴力的本质、根源、过程与后果，各种理论层出不穷，至今不衰。政治暴力是指，政治行为体出于特定政治目的、针对统治关系实施有组织的物质力量，对自我、他人、群体或社会进行威胁和伤害，从而产生重大政治后果的活动。从人、国家、国际体系三个维度来看，政治暴力既是人－国家－国际体系“自下而上”由社会性向度所建构，也是国际体系－国家－人“自上而下”综合作用的结果。它有着深刻而复杂的心理、社会、历史和文化根源，具有政治性、反体系性、组织性和暴力性等特征。在类型学意义上，国内政治暴力和国际政治暴力的区别在于国内和国际政治结构的差异。在伦理意义上，政治暴力总是与合法性与正当性关联。政治暴力建立在对“敌人”的认知基础之上，并且进一步促进这种认知；政治暴力推动国际体系走向终极状态并随着统治关系的消亡而终结。人类的历史，既是一部政治暴力史，也是一部政治暴力批判史。政治暴力批判既关乎政治暴力的意义，也关注人的命运。暴力成了历史，同时，历史也充满了暴力。重视历史的暴力，就有可能超越暴力的历史。

Since the middle and last the Sixties of the twentieth century, along with the spring up of world-wide campaign of political violence, scholars have been stimulated to study the essence, causes, process and consequence of political violence, and there have emerged all sorts of theories up to today.Political violence means the organized physical force, which is directed against the existing relationship between the ruler and the ruled by political actors with particular political aims, and which has had significant influence. From the perspective of three dimensions of man, state and international system, political violence was constructed not only along from individual to state to international system by the social dimension of political violence, but also from international system to state to man with the synthesized effect. It has its root in the profound and complex factors of psychology, society, history, and culture. It is characteristic of such as politics, anti-system organization and violence. From the point of view of typology, the distinction between civil political violence and international political violence lies in the difference between civil political structure and international political structure. From the point of view of ethic, political violence is always connected with the claims of legitimacy and justification. Political violence will be based on the understanding of the conception of “enemy”, and in turn promotes the understanding. Political violence will drive the international system towards an ultimate state, and it will also come to a close along with the dying-out of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. The history of human beings is both a history of political violence and a history of critique of political violence. The critique of political violence concerns both the significance of political violence and the destiny of human beings. Violence becomes history, and history is full of violence. Only when we take seriously with the historically displayed violence, can we transcend the history of violence.