The fundamental point of contention between the works under review here (in my view) is whether or not the presence of systematic violence is primarily a feature or a bug of the given political system being studied. I do not mean this distinction in a normative sense, but rather an analytical one. In other words, should we view endemic political violence in ostensibly democratic states to be deviations from appropriate democratic behavior (i.e., a bug or flaw in a given system), or is it the case that the violence in question should be understood as an inherent part of the system, perhaps even if it is still to be considered a democracy (i.e., a feature or constituent element thereof)?