Forget “militarization”: race, disability and the “martial politics” of the police and of the university

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the limits of the concept of militarization and proposes an alternative concept: martial politics. It argues that the concept of militarization falsely presumes a peaceful liberal order that is encroached on by military values or institutions. Arguing instead that we must grapple with the ways in which war and politics are mutually shaped, the article proposes the concept of martial politics as a means for examining how politics is shot-through with war-like relations. It argues that stark distinctions cannot be made between war and peace, military and civilian or national and social security. This argument is made in relation to two empirical sites: the police and the university. Arguing against the notion that either the police or the university have been “militarized,” the article provides a historical analysis of the ways in which these institutions have always already been implicated in martial politics – that is, of producing White social and economic order through war-like relations with Indigenous, racialized, disabled, poor and other communities. It concludes by assessing the political and scholarly opportunities that are opened up for feminists through the rejection of the concept of militarization in favor of the concept of martial politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Militarization
• martial politics
• race
• disability
• police
• university

Acknowledgements

This article was greatly improved through the rigorous peer review process at IFjP. I am grateful to the journal’s editors and peer reviewers, and for feedback and critical engagement from valued colleagues including Tarak Barkawi, Marieke de Goede, Catherine Fitzpatrick, Thomas Gregory, Melanie Richter-Montpetit, Kyla Schuller, fellow members of the at Rutgers University Institute for Research on Women (IRW) seminar on Feminist In/Security organized by Arlene Stein and Sarah Tobias, and colleagues in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Alison Howell is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, Newark. She is a co-founding editor of Critical Military Studies, and an editorial board member of Critical Studies on Security and International Political Sociology. She has held a Fulbright Distinguished Chair and an SSHRC Research Fellowship. Her research examines the international relations of medicine, security and warfare, with a particular interest in the intersections of science and technology with systems of race, disability, sexuality and gender. She is the author of Madness in International Relations: Psychology, Security and the Global Governance of Mental Health (2011).