Includes bibliographical references and index.

Challenging the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence in a world of contested and contingent moral frameworks -- Challenging assumptions about the necessity and efficacy of violence for defense, protection, and victory -- The conviction and provisionality of nonviolent action : coercion and transformation in nonviolent struggle, nonviolent intervention, and nonviolent defense -- Confronting wrongs, creating wrongs : official discourses and the legitimation of violence in Sri Lanka -- Making sense of violence : media accounts and combatants' understandings -- Assessing violent and nonviolent alternatives for confronting the violence of Sri Lanka's civil war : toward a psycho-discursive theory of civilian protection and violence prevention -- Security without weapons : rethinking protection through the work of Nonviolent Peaceforce in Sri Lanka.