War and the Transformation of Global Politics
Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies Series Editor: Oliver Richmond, Reader, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews Titles include: Jason Franks RETHINKING THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM Vivienne Jabri WAR AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF GLOBAL POLITICS James Ker-Lindsay EU ACCESSION AND UN PEACEKEEPING IN CYPRUS Roger MacGinty NO WAR, NO PEACE The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords Carol McQueen HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND SAFETY ZONES Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda Sergei Prozorov UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EU The Limits of Integration Oliver P. Richmond THE TRANSFORMATION OF PEACE Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies Series Standing Order ISBN 97-1-4039-9575-9 (hardback) & 97-1-4039-9576-6 (paperback) 8 8 You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
War and the Transformation of Global Politics Vivienne Jabri Department of War Studies King s College London, UK
Vivienne Jabri 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-0-230-00657-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28243-2 ISBN 978-0-230-62639-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230626393 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jabri, Vivienne, 1958- War and the transformation of global politics / Vivienne Jabri. p. cm. 1. War. 2. Peace. 3. World politics 1989- I. Title. JZ6385.J33 2007 355.02 dc22 2006051441 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
For Mary Nankivell
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Contents Preface and Acknowledgements viii Chapter 1 Introduction: Understanding War and Violence 1 Chapter 2 The Politics of Global War 32 Chapter 3 Late Modernity, War and Peace 67 Chapter 4 War, the International, the Human 94 Chapter 5 War and the Politics of Cultural Difference 136 Chapter 6 Beyond War and By Way of a Conclusion: Solidarity, the Politics of Peace and Political Cosmopolitanism 163 Notes 190 Bibliography 213 Index 223 vii
Preface and Acknowledgements The subject matter of this book started germinating a number of years ago when critical thought in International Relations began to question the primacy of the state as the location of politics, conceiving the political in other spaces, from the local to the transnational. Many, specifically within cosmopolitan discourses and ranging from feminism, to Frankfurt School critical theory, to poststructuralism, sought to conceive of a post-westphalian global order that called for rethinking not just the formative texts of International Relations, but our understanding of borders, difference, and the shifting dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in a globalised arena. One major element that it seemed to me required particular attention within the critical genre of the discipline was the place of war and violence in such transformations. My aim in this book is precisely to address this question. My previous book Discourses on Violence (1996), aimed to uncover the discursive and institutional continuities and practices that reproduce war and violent conflict. The aim here is to explore the place of war in the transformations that we witness in global politics. I highlight above the intellectual impetus for this project. However, the more immediate context that has in many ways functioned as the driving force behind this project are the wars and acts of violence that have so dominated global politics in the recent past, from the wars of intervention in the Gulf and the Balkans, to the violence of September 11 th and its aftermath in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to the wider socalled war against terrorism, all having profound impact on our conceptions of politics and its locations, the international and its locations, the role of the state in relation to its citizens, the place of humanity as such and its tense relationship with the state and the international. My intellectual agenda was hence reinforced by the events of the world, events that were immediately global in their implications, not just in relation to institutional practices, but more significantly for the lived experience of individuals, communities, and populations, whose lives have been affected by a seemingly perpetual presence of violence in our late modern context. The book is throughout inspired by the writings of Michel Foucault and his analytics of war and power. War in Foucault s work is never confined to the battlefield, but permeates deep into the social sphere viii
Preface and Acknowledgements ix and the practices of control that govern social relations. While Foucault himself confined his investigations to the domestic sphere, my aim here is to shift analysis to the global arena and hence to place the spotlight on the relationship between war and the transformations of the international as a distinct political space, one that is at the same time interlaced with social relations that transcend the domestic/ international divide. The aim is hence to show how the wars of late modernity seek to reconstitute this global arena, so that war becomes a tool of control that is now globally manifest, problematising modern distinctions between the inside and outside, the sovereign state and the anarchic international, zones of peace and zones of violence, war and security, war and peace. The book is hence as much about war as it is about peace, as much about modern continuities and their late modern manifestations. The aim throughout is not only to provide an understanding of the present, but to locate this in the context of a powerful past, a modern legacy that sought some element of certainty and a late modernity that reveals the apotheosis of modernity and its paradoxes, its critical ethos on the one hand and its violence and exclusions on the other. There are a number of individuals who have been sources of inspiration, encouragement, and support, and without whom this book could not have been completed. I want to first of all thank Oliver Richmond, editor of the Palgrave Macmillan series, Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, for early comments on the project and his support. I also want to thank Rob Walker, who is a constant source of challenge and intellectual inspiration. Just as Oliver insists that I focus on peace as much as war, so too Rob insists that I be especially attentive to the international and its conceptualisation. I hope the book heeds both calls and provides some food for thought. My gratitude also goes to King s College London for granting me with the sabbatical leave necessary for the completion of the book. I am also grateful to the European Commission Framework Six funded project, Challenge: European Liberty and Security, which has been a valuable source of funding for the dissemination of aspects of this work in workshops and conferences. I am, in addition, indebted, to so many people for ongoing exchanges of ideas and conversations. I want to specifically thank Claudia Aradau, Didier Bigo, Jenny Edkins, Elspeth Guild, Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal, and Raia Prokhovnik for their engagement and comments on various aspects of my work. All of the above have a generosity of spirit and an intellectual strength that is always sustaining and enabling. I am grateful
x Preface and Acknowledgements to Christine Sylvester for her friendship and encouragement through the years that I have known her. There are also a number of people in the Department of War Studies without whose support this book would not have been completed. I especially want to thank my Head of Department, Brian Holden Reid, for his support in seeking my sabbatical leave. I am also grateful to individuals who took on my duties while I was away. Primary among these are, once again Claudia Aradua, Didier Bigo, and Elspeth Guild, as well as Mervyn Frost, Cornelia Navari, Peter Busch and Mike Goodman. At Palgrave, I am grateful especially to Alison Howson, Gemma d Arcy Hughes and Shirley Tan. I am, as always, dependent on my friends and family for the unconditional love which sustains me. Specifically, I want to mention Mary Nankivell, Diana Davies, Dorian Jabri, Chris Smith, and Jennie Wilson. All in their own ways show me that relationships are the ultimate source of beauty in life.