Violence And Security: Paradigms & Debates (73220041FY)
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Notes of ALL core readings for Violence and Security (Final exam)
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Course
Violence And Security: Paradigms & Debates (73220041FY)
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
The document contains DETAILED notes of all the core readings for violence and security. These could help you gain an overview of the material for the upcoming open-book exam on May 27th-28th. Good luck studying!
Violence And Security: Paradigms & Debates (73220041FY)
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Table of contents
Lecture 1 3
Amoore and de Goede: What counts as violence? 3
Arendt: On violence 7
Krause: From armed conflict to political violence: Mapping and explaining conflict trends
10
Lecture 2 13
Waltz: Nuclear myths and political realities 13
Demmers: Rational choice theory: the costs and benefits of war 17
Lecture 3 22
Jahn: Liberal internationalism: Historical trajectory and current prospects 22
Lecture 4 27
Hansen: Security 27
People’s and Vaughan-Williams: Securitisation Theory 29
Lecture 5 35
Pinar: Securing the postcolonial 35
Sauer and Schörnig: Killer drones: The ‘silver bullet’ of democratic warfare? 37
Cavallaro et al.: Chapter 5: Strategic considerations 41
Lecture 6 43
Cohen: Explaining rape during civil war: Cross-national evidence (1980-2009) 43
MacKenzie: Securitisation and desecuritization: Female soldiers and the reconstruction
of women in post-conflict Sierra Leone 49
Lecture 7 54
Lecture 8 54
Petersen: An emotion-based approach to ethnic conflict 54
Varshney: Ethnic conflict and civil society: India and beyond 62
Lecture 9 68
Fujii: Genocide among neighbours (introduction) 68
Fujii: Local narratives and explanations 73
Lecture 10 77
Njeri: Somaliland; the variability of a liberal peacebuilding critique beyond state building,
state formation and hybridity 77
Autesserre: Introduction; Peaceland 81
Autesserre: Chapter 2: The politics of knowledge 84
Lecture 11 89
Rogers: Terrorism 89
Duyvesteyn: How new is the new terrorism 93
(Browsing) Europol: EU terrorism situation and trend report 97
1
,Lecture 12 98
Bauman et al.: After Snowden: Rethinking the impact of surveillance 98
Michaelsen: The digital transnational repression toolkit 104
2
,Lecture 1
Amoore and de Goede: What counts as violence?
1. The question: What is violence?
We often think of violence as a rupture of order. However, sometimes violence is considered
as a legitimate act when in the objective of politics.
Thus, we must consider the distinction (in the political realm) between apparently senseless
violence and violence with political objectives.
Tony Blair thought that the IRA had a more legitimate political objective in their terrorist act
than did Al Qaeda (considered to be nihilists) - thus the reasoning to go to war in Iraq.
Perhaps, violence is then more illegitimate when beyond the scope of political response (i.e.
as negotiations begin with the cessation of IRA violence).
It is useful to begin by reflecting on the relation between violence and power.
2. Illustrative example: Violence and targeting in the war on terror
The use of illustrative example to map out the complex question of violence and the
difficulties of distinguishing between types of violence.
a. Drone targeting in Pakistan
AfPak: the particularly dangerous region around the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan; a
lot of terrorist threats that extends beyond the immediate territory to the heart of Western
society.
The AfPak mindset (coined by Moshin Hamid): a dispersed geo-political network that
connects the Pakistan borderlands with real but unspecified threats in the urban centres of
Europe.
Thus, America began the targeting of militants in the region using unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVS) ‘drones’. The strikes of these drones increased after the inauguration of Obama.
These strikes also kill civilians.
The UN questions whether these drone strikes represents a legitimate right to self-defense;
especially considering that the strikes also take place outside declared battle zones.
=> But is the nebulous and networked source of the threat of violence a necessary
precondition for the unconventional use of ((il)legitimate) force.
b. Financial targeting in Pakistan
Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF): OECD platform that was est. 1989 against
money laundering. After 9/11 FATF became charged with an agenda designed to cut off
terrorist access to financial resources and global banking.
3
, While the FATF recommendations are far-reaching, countries who do not oblige by the rules
are criticised in FATF’s yearly reports. This, in turn, may affect the country’ credit ratings and
access to international capital markets.
Through FATF, the global community demanded banking reform and changes in national
policing practices against suspect monies.
Pakistan were thus put under pressure to step up its efforts against alleged terrorism in a
dual way: through the military targeting of drone strikes and through the financial targeting of
the FATF.
c. Twin targetings in Pakistan
What is the parallel between drone strikes and financial targeting? They may both have
violent effects and be interwoven in the political logic.
Because of the new financial regulations, new guidelines for charities (i.e. in the UK charity
Commision) make it harder for charities to operate in the region; i.e. after a flooding in the
region in 2010 there was much political contestation over how to manage the much needed
aid (i.e. food aid) => Aid becomes hard to give when the charities (such as Islamic Relief)
who have the means on the ground to provide what is needed are under suspicion and
time-consuming regulation. Increased impoverishment in the wake of these financial
targeting is acute; who is to blame for the region's predicament then? Doesn’t this fuel the
region’s fragile situation further?
The violent effects of the financial targeting is less immediate and visible than the drone
strikes; but equally important if they work to disable vital charitable work and the provision of
welfare/education.
They are also similar in their logics; they both operate through logics of precision targeting
(supporting specific interventions in a sovereign space without the official declaration of war)
and new ways of governing in so-called unruly spaces that have come to typify
contemporary warfare.
The less overt and scarcely visible violence of stopping money and blacklisting a country is
making its people more vulnerable to the more overt forms of visible violence manifested in
drone attacks.
3. General responses: The relationship between violence and power
The twin attacks in Pakistan shows two things of importance to the study of violence and
modern warfare:
- it is difficult to distinguish between violence and non-violence, combatants and
non-combatants
- it is not always easy to recognise violence
a. War as an instrument of politics
von Clausewitz (Prussian military officer) wrote on military strategy in the 19th century: ‘war
is a mere continuation of politics by other means; war is considered to be a political
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