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Security Practices and Political Violence

POLI-D-520 Universit Libre de Bruxelles Second Semester 2012/2013 Fridays ; 14:00 - 16:00 ; S. AY2.108
Master en sciences politiques, orientation Relations internationales, finalit Scurit, paix, conflits - 2e anne Master in Political Sciences (English Program)

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Christian Olsson Office Hours: Mondays 14:30-16:30 Office Location: IEE, av. FD Roosevelt 39, R41.3.107 E-mail : Christian.Olsson@ulb.ac.be

GENERAL PRESENTATION This courses aim is to encourage critical thinking on past and contemporary forms of organized violence. While in peace & conflict studies the focus is on the partly statistical construct of armed conflicts (analyzed through data-bases), we will here rather look at the historical and social constructs of warfare and security. The course is divided into two sections. The first one analyzes the historical contingencies and conditions of possibility of organized violence and warfare It tries to understand their historical variations at the macro-sociological level. Questions dealt with in this part include: what is war? How has it changed our world? How has it itself changed since the end of the Middle Ages until today? To what extent is the practice of warfare mainly a prerogative of the state? Is organized violence any different in the Western world compared to other parts of the world? The second section deals with the professionalization of security: the practices of the professionals of security (the military, the police, intelligence services etc.). While not loosing sight of the historical perspective, the focus is here on the micro-sociological underpinnings of the world of security-professionals.. Questions that will be lingered on in this section include: why and to what extent has warfare become a distinct profession? Is there a difference between specialists of security and specialists of violence? How have security practices changed and what is at stake?

2 Both of the sections will draw on the historical sociology of the state. The latters research project is heavily inspired by the seminal works of Max Weber and Norbert Elias, but also by the more recent work of Charles Tilly and Pierre Bourdieu amongst others. The historical sociology - or more modestly the historically informed sociology - of the state approaches history, not as a field of data to be mined, but as a way to problematize the present. In International Relations (IR), historical sociology is increasingly incorporated into the discipline. While current historical sociology of IR is mainly interested in reframing such broad categories as the international system, it will here mainly serve to analyse present-day security practices, warfare and political violence from a critical point of view.

COURSE REQUISITES There are a few prerequisites to attend this course. 1. First, students must be acquainted with social sciences. They must have at least attended in previous years about five basic courses in fields such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, political science, issue areas 2. Second, students must have attended, and successfully passed the exam of, at least one of the following courses: international economy; history of the 20th century; international relations; foreign policy; international public law; international organizations. 3. Third, students must be fluent in English.

OBJECTIVES The course is designed to help you achieve the following four objectives 1/ Be familiar with the concepts, theories and intellectual tools discussed in historical sociology; 2/ Acquire a critical understanding of the social and historical background of contemporary developments in armed conflicts, political violence and security practices; 3/ Establish awareness and analytic perspective with regard to the social conditions, such as complex social organizations and ideology, enabling organized violence 4/ Understand concretely why and how war is neither universal, nor inevitable TEACHING METHODS AND MANDATORY READINGS The course will take the form of twelve classes of two hours each. Prior to some of the classes, one text has to be read by all students: these readings are mandatory and must be read in a careful and reflexive way. They are to allow the students to grasp the topics and issues presented during the classes, to participate in discussions For the exam you will be asked to read all of the texts. The texts can be found in electronic version on the Universit Virtuelle. EXAM The final exam will include three questions pertaining to the course and the required readings. One question will be directly on one of the required readings. They are to be in answered in two hours (1 page per question). It will be a closed book exam, except for one dictionary. The questions can be answered either in French or in English.

GRADING OF THE EXAM: Each question counts for 33% of the grade. The answer to each question will be evaluated as follows: - The questions will require theoretical and factual knowledge of the elements seen throughout the course and readings (33%). - To answer you will need to make use of your analytical skills, the ability to take a critical distance, to put into perspective, to abstract from acquired knowledge (33%). Finally, you will have to demonstrate your academic writing skills, your capacity to use relevant terminology and bring forward a line of argumentation in a convincing, clear and structured way (33%).

Outline, class-schedule, required readings (provisional)

1/ Introduction: On security practices and political violence I - War & Organized Violence in Historical Perspective 2/ The birth of warfare: war-making and state-making in the western trajectory Required reading: TILLY (Charles) War Making and State Making as Organized Crime in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol (eds) Bringing the State Back In , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p.169-187

3/ Beyond the West: the example of organized violence in the Iraqi trajectory

4/ What is non-state violence? The example of the Afghan conflicts Required readings: Chapter 11 in DORRONSORO (Gilles) Revolution Unending: 1979 to the Present, London: Hurst & Co, 2005

5/ The transformations of warfare Required reading: HOLSTI (Kalevi J), The State, War and the State of War, Cambridge: CUP, 2001. Chapter 3 Wars of the 3rd Kind; p.19-40

II - Security practices in Sociological Perspective 6/ The professionals of security

4 7/ The transformation of contemporary security practices: between war and global policing? Required reading: Chapter 3: The changing norm of humanitarian intervention in FINNEMORE (Martha) The Purpose of Intervention, Changing beliefs on the purpose of force, London: Cornell University Press, 2003

08/ Privatized coercion: from mercenarism to private military companies Required reading: AVANT (Deborah D.), The Market for force : the consequences of privatising security, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (Introduction)

09/ General Conclusions

Indicative Course bibliography BOURDIEU (Piere) Practical Reason. On the theory of action, Stanford: Stanford University Press BULL (Hedley), The Anarchical Society, London Macmillan, 1977 CREVELD (Martin van) The Rise and Decline of the State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 ELIAS (Norbert) The Civilizing Process, Vol.I. The History of Manners, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969, and The Civilizing Process, Vol.II. State Formation and Civilization, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982 FOUCAULT (Michel) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collge de France 1977-78, New York: Picador, 2007 GIDDENS (Anthony) The Nation State and Violence. Volume Two of A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. Cambridge: Polity (1985) HOBDEN (Stephen), HOBSON (John M.), Historical Sociology of International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 HOBDEN (Stephen), International Relations and Historical Sociology: breaking down boundaries, London: Routledge, 1998 HOLSTI (Kalevi J.), The State, War and the State of War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996 HOWARD (Michael), The Invention of Peace and the re-invention of War : Reflections on War and International Order, London: Profile Books, 2000 MALESEVIC (Sinisa) The Sociology of War and Violence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 PERCY (Sarah) Mercenaries: the History of a Norm in International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007; THOMPSON (Janice E.), Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, State-building and Extra-territorial Violence in Early Modern Europe, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994 TILLY (Charles) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992, Oxford: Blackwell, 1990

5 WEBER (Max) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.