Racial militarism and civilizational anxiety at the imperial encounter: From metropole to the postcolonial state

In this article, I ask three key questions: First, what is the relationship between militarism and race? Second, how does colonialism shape that relationship to produce racial militarism on both sides of the imperial encounter? And, third, what is the function of racial militarism? I build on Fanon’s psychoanalytic work on the production of racial hierarchies and internalization of stigma to argue that militarism became a means through which the European imperial nation-state sought to mitigate its civilizational anxiety and assert itself at the top of a constructed hierarchy. In particular, I argue that European militarism is constituted by its colonization and historical constructions of the so-called Muslim Orient, stigmatized as a rival, a threat and an inferior neighbour. However, this racial militarism and civilizational anxiety is not only a feature of the colonial metropole, but also transferred onto colonized and postcolonial states. Drawing on examples of racial militarism practised by the Syrian regime, I argue Europe’s racial-militarist stigmas are also internalized and instrumentalized by postcolonial states via fleeing and transferral. Throughout the article, I demonstrate that racial militarism has three main functions in both metropole and postcolony: the performance of racial chauvinism and superiority; demarcation of boundaries of exclusion; and dehumanization of racialized dissent in order to legitimate violence.

Laws of War and Peace

Alongside individual murders and crimes, the federal government also confronted in the territories a long-standing borderlands law governing organized violence. Both Natives and whites there conducted larger-scale, often brutal expeditions against each other, often with little or no formal authorization from their ostensible governments. The federal government sought to replace this seemingly pathological culture of violence by imposing a definition of war drawn from the newly adopted U.S. Constitution that made the federal government, and particularly Congress, the sole arbiter and source of legitimate violence against Native nations. The effects of this federal assertion of supremacy differed in the two territories. In the Northwest Territory, the conflict known as the Northwest Indian War expanded earlier practices of borderlands violence under federal auspices. Citizens of the Southwest Territory demanded the same, and nearly got it, in what this chapter terms the war-that-nearly-was. What actually followed in the Southwest Territory instead was an intense, polyvocal legal contest between territorial citizens and officials, Congress, the Washington administration, and the Creek, Cherokee, and Chickasaw Nations over the meaning of the categories of war and peace. Yet again, federal officials failed to establish federal supremacy, but they did succeed in insinuating federal law into territorial life and Indian country, including disputes between Native nations.

Guns don’t kill people…: good guys and the legitimization of gun violence

Building on literatures that examine why firearms are appealing and to whom and employing Weber’s concept of “legitimate violence”, this paper utilizes an online concealed carry forum to critically analyze how firearm proliferation is rationalized in the U.S. The analysis focuses on three specific examples of violence—the Parkland, Florida, and Philando Castile shootings, and stories of children who find guns and shoot themselves and/or others. This work is a critical examination of the social construction of “legitimate violence” that deconstructs the discourses embedded in the “pro-gun” notion that the answer to gun violence is more guns.

Paramilitarism

From the deserts of Sudan to the jungles of Colombia, and from the streets of Belfast to the mountains of Kurdistan, paramilitaries have appeared in violent conflicts in very different settings. Paramilitaries are generally depicted as irregular armed organizations that carry out acts of violence against civilians on behalf of a state. In doing so, they undermine the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence, while at the same time creating a breeding ground for criminal activities. Why do governments with functioning police forces and armies use paramilitary groups? This book tackles this question through the prism of the interpenetration of paramilitaries and the state. The book interprets paramilitarism as the ability of the state to successfully outsource mass political violence against civilians that transforms and traumatizes societies. It analyzes how paramilitarism can be understood in a global context, and how paramilitarism is connected to transformations of warfare and state–society relations. By comparing a broad range of cases, it looks at how paramilitarism has made a profound impact in a large number of countries that were different, but nevertheless shared a history of pro-government militia activity. A thorough understanding of paramilitarism can clarify the direction and intensity of violence in wartime and peacetime. The book examines the issues of international involvement, institutional support, organized crime, party politics, and personal ties.

homicide, Greek

Homicide was considered the most important crime in Athenian law because the killer attempted to usurp the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence. To express the special nature of homicide, the laws of Athens created special courts and procedures. The person accused of murder was considered polluted and was banned from agora and shrines. There were four basic categories of homicide: intentional homicide tried at the Areopagus, involuntary homicide and planning a homicide tried at the Palladion, and just homicide according to the laws tried at the Delphinium. Similar rules and procedures were found in other Greek communities. In the Laws, Plato proposed certain reforms for Athenian homicide law.

Seeking Reconciliation

This chapter studies the operations of the Iranian criminal law and analyzes how the procedural administration of the law animates the shariʻa. Iranian criminal laws provide many avenues for victims to forgo retributive sanctioning. But preserving the right of retribution serves several purposes: maintaining the sovereign's monopoly on legitimate violence, giving victims a sense of power, and halting the cycle of violence. The way Iran achieves this comprises an interesting balancing act between maintaining the monopoly over legitimate violence and granting individual victims the right of retribution, which its leaders believe, through their interpretation of the shariʻa, cannot be appropriated by the sovereign. Since the law categorizes intentional murder as qisas and leaves judges with no discretion in sentencing, the judges may use their considerable influence to pressure the family to forgo retribution. The chapter then considers the role of judges and examines how the laws (substantive and procedural) shape their reasoning and discretion in both sentencing and encouraging forbearance.

A Soft Approach to Counter Radicalism: The Role of Traditional Islamic Education

This study sheds light on the identity of Islamic education in Indonesia and Singapore to fight against radicalism. This study focuses on comparing Indonesia and Singapore in awakening multicultural consciousness, particularly on philosophical and practical religious education. The crisis of ideology faced by Muslim society in the world has an impact on the genesis of religious movements that legitimate violence and terrorism. This study is based on the sociological perspective and aimed at knowing the philosophical and practical construction of Islamic education in Indonesia and Singapore. The focus of this study is on preventive and persuasive deradicalization. Religious education institutions in both countries have multi principles and practices of education, which is implemented particularly in preventing Islamic ideology that teaches violent values and terrorism. Anticipating the development of understanding radicalism, in both countries, Islamic education has formulated policies that are accommodating with universal values and cosmopolitanism of Islamic civilization. Such efforts are implemented by pesantren and madrasah in Indonesia and Singapore to build harmony among fellow human beings and transmit the character of egalitarian, democratic, humanist, inclusive, and civilized.

4. The Nation-State

This chapter examines how the nation-state came into being and how it became dominant as a political unit. It first presents a general and streamlined portrait of the state—a concept that sociologists inspired by Max Weber might call an ideal type. In particular, it considers some of the characteristics of a nation-state, including monopoly of legitimate violence, territoriality, sovereignty, plurality, and relation to the population. The chapter proceeds by discussing a more expansive concept of the nation-state, taking into account the role of law, centralized organization, the distinction between state and society, religion and the market, the public sphere, the burden of conflict, and citizenship and nation. The chapter also describes five paths in state formation and concludes with an assessment of three main phases which different European states have followed in somewhat varying sequences: consolidation of rule, rationalization of rule, and expansion of rule.

Military Sniping

This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the sharpshooting of the First World War. The asymmetric potential of this technology will be detailed, as well as the criticism this advantage attracted. The chapter will then clarify that in contrast to its tension with the warrior ethos, the asymmetry-challenge of sniping did not impact the Just War Tradition to a meaningful degree. The chapter concludes by examining the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of sniping, focusing on the increasingly significant role of combat responsibility in determinations of ethically legitimate violence.