two - Theorising ‘War’ within Sociology and Criminology

Summary

Introduction

It has been suggested that ‘war’ has been of lesser interest to the discipline of sociology than other normative social phenomenon. West and Matthewman (2016) have recently pointed out, rather than commanding the central attention of sociological analysis, the study of war and the military have either been broadly ignored within the discipline, discussed as an attendant matter related to social and political issues, or subsumed as a facet of peace studies. Indeed, they and other scholars (Barkawi, 2006; Ware, 2009; Eulriet, 2010) have noted that the academic study of war has conventionally been taken to be the preserve of the macro interests of international relations, ‘tended to be understood in rationalist ways, as a mechanism in which sovereign states and elites engage as a means to pursue their interests, paying little attention to the dynamics and power of civil society’ (West and Matthewman, 2016: 486).

Furthermore, the study of the military as a social entity has been seen as the territory of the niche, but longstanding, interest of military sociology (West and Matthewman, 2016); a subdiscipline of sociology emerging from US scholarship in the aftermath of the Second World War (see for example Coates and Pelligrin, 1965; Siebold, 2001; Caforio, 2006; Soeters, 2018). For West and Matthewman (2016), making a case for theorising and studying war as a ‘strong program’, requires surpassing such rationalist agendas set by international relations and military sociology, in order to better explore the interconnections between state conduct of/at war, and the impacts militarisation has on social relations. However, overlooked within the ‘strong’ agenda put forth by West and Matthewman (2016) has been the more marginal commentary from criminology.

Although such disciplinary boundaries are often artificial and entirely co-constructed by the knowledges, methods and practices that are – or are not – recognised within and by them, when studying the subject of war from a ‘criminologically’ oriented starting point (as we have in this book) such boundaries can and do become noticeable. They are therefore worth acknowledging in the interests of breaking them down in order to appreciate the subject of war as a social phenomenon with interdisciplinary relevance across the social sciences.