Political Violence in Context: Time, Space and Milieu is an ambitious book edited by Lorenzo Bosi, Niall Ó Dochartaigh and Daniela Pisoiu. The book is divided in three parts, each exploring a specific dimension related to the contextualization of political violence: time, space and milieu. Inspired by social movements and critical terrorism studies, the contributors try to go beyond the contentious politics literature and find ways to articulate agency and structure. Without ignoring the contingency and high volatility of political violence, they propose to identify and analyse mechanisms and processes within dynamic theoretical frameworks. The book renews the field and offers a fertile ground for discussion within the discipline.

The first section focuses on the dimension of time and contains the book's most interesting contributions. As underlined by Bosi, concepts which have tried to capture temporal dynamics do so often linearly, without questioning the dynamics themselves (15–16). Paradoxically, time is frequently considered to be inherent to the context and becomes “atemporal.” Among the chapters within this section, Donagh Davis' contribution is particularly interesting. The author demonstrates that a transformative event can narrow the protagonists' horizon of possibilities in terms of their actions and reactions during the 1916 uprising in Ireland. However, while the author tries to be nuanced in presenting the debate around the nature and role of the events in the different situations, he uses the concept of transformative event as a causal mechanism (27–28). As a result, he omits, in the operationalization of the concept, its inherent fluidity produced by the potential perpetual reconstruction of events in the different narratives and by the different actors. It is probably this aporia which leads the author to show the limits of his study by ending with the following question: “Why did violence backfire on the state this time round, and not the rebels?” (37).

A similar remark can be made for the fascinating paper of Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd. The authors analysed the multiple temporalities in violent conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Macedonia. They elegantly demonstrated the dialectical process between long-term structures and short-term processes, mainly by observing how the decisions made after a violent conjuncture—rather than tactical moves focused on conjuncture—can help solve conflictual relations (60–61). However, the authors of the chapter, much like that of the section as a whole, are not able to fully integrate discussions of the different temporalities of the conflicts with the imaginaries of the actors who interpret and help shape these temporalities.

The second section of the book discusses spatial contexts and seeks to understand “the negotiated and contingent nature of territorial control” (121). The contributions explore spatiality in a variety of contexts, including national, sub-national, regional and local. Two chapters are particularly innovative. The first, by Aurélie Campana, studies the dynamics of contentious politics in Xinjiang. It introduces the concept of “alternative space” (145–46) and demonstrates the existence of other spaces in the social imaginaries that are rooted in socio-political grievances and identities constructed in opposition to the dominant national identity. However, this alternative space, and the potential protests associated with it, can disappear and be weakened due to its ideational and material porosity with the dominant space. The second chapter, written by Jovana Carapic, initiates a rich reflection on political violence in urban environments (187). By changing the scale and space observed, Carapic highlights the phenomenon of “armed urbanism” by discussing two similar and interrelated subtypes: urban insurgency and gang warfare.

The last section is devoted to the study of milieu, focusing on both pre-existing and existing milieus that are associated with the emergence of violent groups. The conceptions of “radical milieu” in the contributions encompass social, discursive and symbolic dimensions (210). As demonstrated by Jérome Drevon in his study of Egypt, a radical milieu can both reinforce and weaken violent groups. Indeed, the author shows how the radical Salafi milieu in Egypt interacts with its environment on a macro level and can differ in its reactions with the ones advocated by the violent groups. It can lead the decrease of the radical milieu support for the violent groups. Drevon also demonstrates how the development of radical milieu can be non-relational or relational depending on the period considered (230–31). The contributors to this section as a whole have shown how the study of milieu in political violence can help bridge the gap between the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of analysis and bring closer the structuralist and relational approaches. In conclusion, despite certain aporias and some qualitative disparities among the chapters, this collective work makes a valuable and inspiring contribution to the literature on political violence.