Coercion

Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner through the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party.[1][2][3] It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. Common-law systems recognize duress as a defense to criminal liability when an individual commits an offense under coercion.[4]

Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced. Although the concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party.[5]: 126

## Contents

* 1 Contexts
* 1.1 Political theory
* 1.2 Healthcare
* 2 Overview
* 2.1 Physical
* 2.1.1 Pain compliance
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## Contexts

### Political theory

Political authors such as John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, and Ronald Dworkin consider whether governments are inherently coercive.[6]: 28 In 1919, Max Weber, building on the view of Rudolf von Ihering,[7] defined a state as "a human community that (successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force".[8][9] Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion.[6]: 42

### Healthcare

Healthcare systems may use informal coercion to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, medical staff may use physical coercion to treat a patient involuntarily,[10] a practice which raises ethical concerns.[11] Such practices has also been shown to cause moral distress among healthcare staff, especially when staff attitudes toward coercive measures are negative.[12] To minimize the need for coercion in psychiatric care, various models like Safewards,[13] as well as Six Core Strategies, have been implemented with promising results.[14]

## Overview

The purpose of coercion is to substitute one's aims with weaker ones that the aggressor wants the victim to have. For this reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to freedom.[15] Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the kind of injury threatened, second according to its aims and scope, and finally according to its effects, from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend.

### Physical

Physical coercion is the most commonly considered form of coercion, where the content of the conditional threat is the use of force against a victim, their relatives or property. An often used example is "putting a gun to someone's head" (at gunpoint) or putting a "knife under the throat" (at knifepoint or cut-throat) to compel action under the threat that non-compliance may result in the attacker harming or even killing the victim. These are so common that they are also used as metaphors for other forms of coercion.

Armed forces in many countries use firing squads to maintain discipline and intimidate the masses, or opposition, into submission or silent compliance. However, there also are nonphysical forms of coercion, where the threatened injury does not immediately imply the use of force. In 2000, Byman and Waxman defined coercion as "the use of threatened force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would."[16] Coercion does not in many cases amount to destruction of property or life since compliance is the goal.

#### Pain compliance

This section is an excerpt from Pain compliance[ edit ]

## See also

* Acquiescence
* Coercive diplomacy
* Coercive power
* Controlling behavior in relationships
* Deterrence (legal)
* Duress in American law
* Duress in English law
* Marital coercion
* Monopoly on violence
* Punishment (psychology)
* Undue influence

## Notes

1. ↑ "Definition of coercion". Merriam-Webster. December 2023. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coercion. "the act, process, or power of coercing"
2. ↑ Schelling, Thomas C. (1966). Arms and Influence. Yale University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt5vm52s. ISBN 978-0300002218. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm52s.
3. ↑ Pape, Robert A. (1996). Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (1 ed.). Cornell University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0801431340. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1287f6v. "'Coercion' means efforts to change the behavior of a state by manipulating costs and benefits."
4. ↑ LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law, § 9.7 (Duress)
5. ↑ Powers, Penny (2007-06-12). "Persuasion and Coercion: A Critical Review of Philosophical and Empirical Approaches" (in en). HEC Forum 19 (2): 125–143. doi:10.1007/s10730-007-9035-4. ISSN 0956-2737. PMID 17694994. https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10730-007-9035-4.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Morris, Christopher W. (January 2012). "State Coercion and Force". Social Philosophy and Policy 29 (1): 28–49. doi:10.1017/S0265052511000094. ISSN 0265-0525. https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0265052511000094/type/journal_article.
7. ↑ Turner, Stephen; Factor, Regis (2014). "Decisionism and Politics: Weber as Constitutional Theorist". Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity (reprint ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. p. 337. ISBN 978-1317833369. https://books.google.com/books?id=Kh5IAwAAQBAJ. Retrieved 28 March 2023. "The state, as Ihering defined it, is an association that is distinguished as a type of association by its claim of an exclusive right to exercise certain forms of coercion."
8. ↑ Weber, Max (1919). "Politics as a Vocation". https://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf. "In the past, the most varied institutions – beginning with the sib – have known the use of physical force as quite normal. Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."
9. ↑ Quoted in: Stanger, Allison (2009). "State Power in a Privatized World". One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy. Yale University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0300156324. https://books.google.com/books?id=foJOC--mQaEC&pg=PA45. Retrieved 28 March 2023. "In Max Weber's classic definition, the state is 'a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a territory.'"
10. ↑ Hotzy, Florian; Jaeger, Matthias (2016). "Clinical Relevance of Informal Coercion in Psychiatric Treatment – A Systematic Review". Frontiers in Psychiatry 7: 197. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00197. ISSN 1664-0640. PMID 28018248. PMC 5149520. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323809188.
11. ↑ Hem, Marit Helene; Molewijk, Bert; Pedersen, Reidar (2014-12-04). "Ethical challenges in connection with the use of coercion: a focus group study of health care personnel in mental health care". BMC Medical Ethics 15. doi:10.1186/1472-6939-15-82. ISSN 1472-6939. PMID 25475895.
12. ↑ Eder, Nora; Nordenberg, Kristin; Långström, Niklas; Rozental, Alexander; Moell, Astrid (2025-02-28). "Moral distress among inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry staff: a mixed-methods study of experiences and associated factors" (in en). Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health 19 (1): 16. doi:10.1186/s13034-025-00868-7. ISSN 1753-2000. PMID 40022125.
13. ↑ Bowers, L. (August 2014). "Safewards: a new model of conflict and containment on psychiatric wards" (in en). Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 21 (6): 499–508. doi:10.1111/jpm.12129. ISSN 1351-0126. PMID 24548312.
14. ↑ Fletcher, Justine; Spittal, Mathew; Brophy, Lisa; Tibble, Holly; Kinner, Stuart; Elsom, Steve; Hamilton, Bridget (October 2017). "Outcomes of the Victorian Safewards trial in 13 wards: Impact on seclusion rates and fidelity measurement" (in en). International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 26 (5): 461–471. doi:10.1111/inm.12380. ISSN 1445-8330. PMID 28960739. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/inm.12380.
15. ↑ Bhatia, K. L. (2010) (in en). Textbook on Legal Language and Legal Writing. Universal Law Publishing. ISBN 978-8175348943. https://books.google.com/books?id=wg1dvc2lfcEC&pg=PA160.
16. ↑ Byman, Daniel L.; Waxman, Matthew C. (2000). "Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate". International Security. p. 5–38. https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3246&context=faculty_scholarship.

## References

* Anderson, Scott A. (n.d.). "Towards a Better Theory of Coercion, and a Use for It". The University of Chicago. https://ptw.uchicago.edu/Anderson02.pdf.
* Lifton, Robert J. (1961) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1614276753

## External links

* Anderson, Scott. "Coercion". in Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/coercion/.
* Carter, Barry E. Economic Coercion, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (subscription required)

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