State Monopoly Of Violence Research Articles

Anarchism

Anarchism asks a simple, yet deceptively complex question: is a better life possible? The answer depends on one's tolerance for examining Hobbesian premises at the heart of today's democracies. The dismantling of society's coercive principles means nothing short of reconfigured nondominating relationships, redeveloped community support for fruitful living, and full-scale rejection of violence. Carissa Honeywell's Anarchism addresses both concerns by dispelling popular myths that propagate the modern state and plotting the anarchist way to a better life. The strength of this text is Honeywell's scholarly voice and method. As part of Polity Press's series, “Key Concepts in Political Theory,” Honeywell's Anarchism includes extensive notes, sound and compelling scholarship, and clear and incisive language. Beyond the refreshingly clear writing, Honeywell's scholarly treatment of literature also serves the dual purpose of introducing the reader to additional sources to consider. This monograph may well be one of the most accessible texts on anarchism available today.Anarchism is divided into five chapters. The introduction describes social structures that create the conditions of inequality. Reemphasizing that these structures are “choices” (3), Honeywell defines modern anarchism as the “rejection of nation-states and neoliberal economic policies, resistance to war, the use of direct action, organization through cooperative association, horizontal structures, commitment to bottom-up organization, decentralization, voluntary association, mutual aid, the rejection of any idea that the end justifies the means, consensus decision making and network models of organization” (17).The major chapters interweave theory with specific case studies, like Food Not Bombs in Chapter 2. Tracing the corrosive effects of neoliberalism (38ff), Honeywell highlights the plight of those affected by economic policies because “anarchists work from the assumption that it is the economic model that is faulty and broken, not the people who suffer from it” (45). Honeywell uses the idea of reorganizing ourselves away from nondominance to encounter real freedom in our interconnections (64).Chapter 3’s topic of harm reduction underscores the group Prevent Point to reshape how society considers harm particularly in health-care matters (66). This is to emphasize “[h]arm reduction treats these needs and choices as lived realities, not moral issues’’ (71). In the larger scope of prefiguration, or building the future now with anarchist principles, Honeywell paints harm reduction as a method to enact social change to combat “dislocation” and “isolation” (73).The abolition of the prison-industrial complex is, it can be argued, one of the most misunderstood areas of anarchism. Chapter 4 treats “the primary justification of state power and the state monopoly of violence” insofar as prison “has developed to defend capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy in the twenty-first century” (97). Appealing to the anarchist goal to alleviate the causes of social ills (99), Honeywell details how this can be done on a practical level (108) while isolating how recent policies have depleted social funding and support (101). A fascinating subsection, “Anarchist criminology,” presents alternative social ideas where the practicalities can take place “to engage in deeper learning about how to create safety and justice when we have all been taught by the media and in schools, colleges, and police academies that the only way to make everyone safe is through control, force, weapons, and punitive justice” (117). Honeywell also details the anarchist vision of “transformative justice” (123ff) to heighten “demilitarizing work” (126).The final chapter outlines ways to rethink the underpinning of violence in society where people can consider the claim that it is “our bonds with others that keep us safe, not our protection from them or our power over them” (129). Rejecting violence requires a reorientation to real human relationships not held together with fear and coercion.One of the strengths of this text, the extensive use of contemporary examples, may also weaken the relevance and argument over time. That is, the examples mentioned in the text provide immediate context, illustrative power, and convincing argumentation. At the same time, the examples may lose their persuasive power in the future. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic is used throughout the text to interrogate health injustice, domestic violence, and political manipulation. The pandemic will no doubt be relevant for the foreseeable future, but it also might have an effect now that it may not have in the future.In addition, Honeywell rightly stresses the “choices” that go into creating and then sustaining social structures. And, no doubt, there are moral implications to individuals’ choices. What is less clear, though, is the motivation for doing so. In other words, do people operate within the systems because they simply haven't considered the question, is a better life possible?, or do they choose their actions with maliciousness? I suspect that real engagement with a text like Honeywell's Anarchism would shake off the slumber of complicity with unjust systems, but it is worth considering the question of motivations.

Varieties of organised hypocrisy: security privatisation in UN, EU, and NATO crisis management operations

ABSTRACT International organisations (IOs) have increasingly resorted to private military and security companies (PMSCs) as providers of armed protection, training, intelligence, and logistics. In this article, we argue that IOs, seeking to reconcile conflicting international norms and member states’ growing unwillingness to provide the manpower required for effective crisis management, have decoupled their official policy on and actual use of PMSCs, thereby engaging in organised hypocrisy. Due to its stricter interpretation of norms like the state monopoly of violence, the United Nations (UN) has showcased a more glaring gap between talk and action than the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which display a more pragmatic, but not entirely consistent, approach to the use of PMSCs. By examining the decoupling between UN, EU, and NATO official contractor support doctrines and operational records, this article advances the debate on both security privatisation and organised hypocrisy.

From organizing to organizations: a typological scale of human relations management outside the legal world

PurposeThe article examines strategies of human resource management in the absence of institutional hedging by norm-enforcing institutions such as a state monopoly of violence by using case studies of criminal organizations. This condition provides a test-bed for studying the effects of human relations management strategies on organizational performance.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, a case study methodology is applied. Three cases are selected to build a scale from complete plasticity of an undifferentiated network via a status differentiated gang to a hierarchical organization that provides social positions. The case studies are analysed by qualitative content analysis, network analysis and agent-based simulation.FindingsAn undifferentiated network based on informal trust lacks mechanisms for conflict resolution. This is a highly vulnerable organizational structure. While a status differentiated gang is more resilient towards internal conflicts, its activities remain dependent on individually accumulated social capital. This organizational structure is not resilient over generations of actors. A hierarchical organization provides highest degree of structural resilience up to a level of a system of self-organized criticality.Originality/valueThe study of human relations management outside the legal world provides insights into the basic mechanisms and functional effects of organizational activity.

Socially accepted violence by “agents of law”: Sublimation of aggression as a model

Abstract The term “Socially accepted violence” refers to the use of physical force in a manner that is perceived as legitimate in certain cultures. The exploration of psychological processes characteristic to those who carry-out such forms of violence must, therefore, take into careful consideration the mutual influences between social constructions and the individual's psyche. This paper proposes a psychoanalytic study of a certain type of socially accepted violence, that which is committed by “agents of law” – members of institutions responsible for the execution of the state monopoly of violence. It examines the potential contribution of the underdeveloped Freudian concept of sublimation – the directing of drive towards a socially valued goal. Ideas by Freud, Elias and Girard regarding the elementary role of violence in social institutions servers to highlight the part of sublimation of aggression in the complex psychology of individuals who carry out socially accepted violence in the name of law.

The particularity of the universal: critical reflections on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power and the state

A critical review of Bourdieu’s theory of the state is developed here against the backdrop of both his wider theoretical project and empirical studies. Elaborating the concepts of symbolic capital, symbolic violence, and symbolic domination, the centrality that Bourdieu accords to symbolic forms is compared to benchmark Weberian accounts that start with the state monopoly of violence. Reviewing also some of the burgeoning secondary literature discussing his theory of the state, Bourdieu’s writings, which encompass various antinomies, are shown to vacillate between two distinct perspectives—a strong and a weak theory of the state. His rejection of the “physicalist” approaches of Marx, Elias, and Tilly is elaborated and subject to a counter-critique, particularly in relation to the notion of symbolic “violence.” Bourdieu’s account of the state is shown to be as much a political as theoretical intervention. His antagonism towards Marxist accounts in particular is shown to be rooted in a pragmatic interest in the role of the “left hand of the state” in progressive reform; and this perspective is traced back to the twin influences of Durkheim and Hegel, French republicanism, and in particular the potential of the state to express a universal interest. At the same time, compared with sophisticated Marxist and Weberian accounts and the work of Norbert Elias and Gramsci, Bourdieu’s theory is shown to be severely lacking in the way that he deals with violence and coercion. His “expanded materialism,” particularly with the “strong theory,” bends the stick too far and overplays the symbolic basis of consent. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s insights with regard to the pervasive influences of state practices of classification, taxonomy, delegation, and naming are shown to have real utility with regard to focused empirical investigations of the state in modern societies.

Mafia war: simulating conflict escalation in criminal organizations

The paper describes a simulation model of conflict escalation in criminal organizations, investigating conditions of stability and collapse of the organization. As a paradigmatic case, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra provides the background for the formulation of the model assumptions. Cosa Nostra faced two so-called Mafia wars. Outbreak of wars is replicated by the simulation model. Since criminal organizations operate outside the state monopoly of violence, they provide a laboratory for studying war and state in the making: Organizational stability remains dependent on the loyalty of the Mafiosi. Monte-Carlo simulation experiments reveal a constant danger of a Hobbesian war of all against all. A statistical examination of explanatory factors of the distribution of violence shows that minimal differences in the initial conditions open up pathways to the escalation of violence. Central factors for stability are economic prosperity and normative commitment to the organization. Once the economic carrying capacity of the environment is reached, normative binding forces control escalation of violence. However, stability remains precarious and is in constant danger of falling in a trap cycle of revenge. This path-dependent effect is the central mechanism for the escalation of violence.

Demokrati versus repræsentation:

This article investigates the theory of an imperative mandate as presented in the radical French revolutionary Jean-François Varlet’s text Project for a Special and Imperative Mandate from 1792. This text is taken as, and shown to be, representative for a widespread understanding of radical democracy during the French Revolution in which deputies were not understood as ‘representatives’ but as ‘mandataries’ who were legally bound to follow the instructions of their commettants. As an essential part of this radical conception of democracy, social movements were to be constantly mobilized and able to supervise the political system. This entails a shift in the balance of power from the state to the social movements, and as such it expresses a different conception of democracy than that of liberal democracy with its rule of law and state monopoly of violence.

Sport and Civilisation: Violence Mastered? From Civilising Functions to Pacifying Functions

Explaining that it is not possible to divide human activity (political, economic, social, sport, etc.) into different sectors, as they all originate from the same actors, Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning thus came to formulate the central hypothesis of a network which linked the process of pacification of customs, the development of a parliamentary system for society, the state monopoly of violence, the euphemisation of violence in the aristocracy, the genesis of sport and, by recursion, the roles and functions of modern sports in the state control of violence and the learning of self-control. Elias and Dunning contrast modern sports with the ancient games, euphemisation and the persistence of violence, ‘sport’ leisure characteristic of ‘modern’ societies and traditional games in the ‘ancient’ societies, which accompanied the religious calendars and rites of passage. But do they really question society? This paper shows how the problems posed by Elias' theory are, essentially, of three types: first, those linked to the methodology used; second, those related to the limits imposed by the notion of self-constraint; and, finally, those concerning the pacifying function attributed to sport.

Afghanistan’s decentralised regional foreign policy

Afghanistan's lack of a state monopoly of violence reflects on its foreign policy in a number of ways. First, various non-state organizations developing their own relations with foreign countries. Second, enforcing coherent policy making within the institutions of the Afghan state itself has been sometimes problematic as officials could rely on the patronage of organizations external to the state to delay the implementation of official policies. This article discusses the cases of Afghan foreign policy towards Pakistan, India, China and Iran.