War, liberalism, and modernity: the biopolitical provocations of ‘Empire’

Abstract

The relationships between war, liberalism and modernity remain heavily under‐theorised within international relations. Existing critiques emphasise the ways in which the developments of liberal societies have been facilitated by the deployment of instrumental forms of force and violence in the extension and control of spaces beyond the boundaries of the zone of ‘liberal peace’. Yet, the ordinary functioning of liberal societies themselves can also be understood in terms of the roles of war. This article utilises ideas derived from Michel Foucault and Antonio Negri to advance our understanding of the ways in which liberal powers pursue security through the creation of what this author terms a logistical order of relations between the subjects that they govern. Simultaneously, the strategisation of social relations within liberal societies fosters the development of new forms of antagonistic subjectivities that contest the logistical foundations of liberal societies. This dual set of developments poses problematic questions as to how we should understand the relationships between the organisation of liberal societies and the forms of resistance that emerge in their midst. As the author details, these questions are made all the more pressing by the current context of the War on Terror.

Notes

This is admittedly a slightly crude representation of the tradition of realism as a whole. Classical realists such as Morgenthau and Carr offered quite complex understandings of the relations between war, the state and the international system. It is, however, highly representative of the more contemporary form of neorealism associated especially with the work of Waltz. See Waltz (1959).

The notion of heterotopia is once again Foucauldian in origin. See Foucault (1997a, xvii–xviii).

‘The development of world society is a process that is neither linear nor in itself conducive to peace or social integration. Imbedding globalization processes in a cooperation‐oriented global governance architecture is therefore one of the tasks facing the twenty‐first century’ (Messner 2002, 33).