Contention and social order: The historical relation between political and social riot dispositives

ABSTRACT

The relation between political contention and social order is a fundamental field of sociological inquiry. This article puts forward a dispositive perspective on the relation by analysing its constitution in concrete objects of control. Focusing on the object of riots, I uncover a significant change at the turn of the nineteenth century. Before the change, political and social riot dispositives were both mutually exclusive and in danger of transforming into each other. This meant that riots were sites in which the relation between contention and social order was negotiated. This negotiation was brought to a halt by a new relation. Consequently, political and social riot dispositives could coexist on the condition that riots became a liminal object. This article contributes to our empirical knowledge on the link between political and social dispositives and opens up a new perspective on the general relation between contention and social order.

KEYWORDS:

• Contention
• riots
• Foucault
• social order
• dispositives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There is a different imperative that can be called political in a radical sense, which I do not discuss. In this, conflict is not internal to society but seen as an enemy outside society (Mouffe, 2005).

 

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Aarhus University, Department of Political Science Internal Grant.