War and Violence in Classical Sociology
* Article: How Pacifist Were the Founding Fathers?: War and Violence in Classical Sociology. By Sinisa Malesevic. European Journal of Social Theory, 13 (2), pp. 193-212
"the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were characterized by the primacy of militarist ideas in social thought. Not only was it that war and violence constituted the esprit de corps of German academia (Mann,1988, 2004), but similar ideas were widespread and highly popular within leading academic circles throughout Europe and North America."
Contextual Quote
"The central premise of this article is that classical social thought was not, by and large, ignorant of war and violence. Instead it is the hegemony of ‘anti-militarist’ social theory in the second half of the twentieth century that has ‘cleansed’ sociology of the study of warfare by simultaneously ignoring its prolific, diverse and imaginative ‘bellicose’ tradition and by reinterpreting the classics in strictly ‘pacifist’ terms.1Rather than consisting solely of the ‘holy trinity’ – Marx, Durkheim and Weber – which, in the wake of WWII, were established as the principal if not the only representatives of the sociological cannon, classical social thought was much wider and significantly less ‘pacifist’. In many respects, the period of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the time of sociology’s institutional birth, was dominated by a ‘militarist’ social thought. Much of this intellectual tradition is worth revisiting, as once the trappings of normative bellicosity are removed, there is a wealth of sociologically potent concepts and ideas that can help us make sense of the profoundly sociological phenomena which are war and violence
- Sinisa Malesevic [1]
Context
The bellicose tradition in classical social thought
From the book, The Sociology of War and Violence:
"Hans Joas (2003) has recently disputed the existence of what many have referred to as the militarist tradition in German social thought. He argues that there was little in common between individual thinkers taken to be rep- resentatives of this tradition. Although he is right that belligerence was not unique to German academia he is wrong in minimising the social impact and internal coherence of this research paradigm. Although there is evident diversity in their political views, their disciplinary interests and their country of origin, a number of influential authors in Europe and North America shared a common research focus on war, violence and state power. In addition they interpreted social and political life through a distinct ‘bellicose’ approach, all of considerations set them apart as representatives of a particular intellectual tradition.
In other words, there is a potent militarist tradition in classical social thought which is broad and includes a variety of distinct approaches:
(1) German belligerent statism,
(2) Austro-American group struggle paradigm,
(3) German sociological libertarianism,
(4) Italian elite theory
(5) Anglo-American evolutionary theory and the
(6) Franco-German social metaphysics of violence."
Abstract
"Most commentators agree that the study of war and collective violence remains the Achilles heel of sociology. However, this apparent neglect is often wrongly attributed to the classics of social thought.
This article contests such a view by arguing:
(1) that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and
(2) most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to the ‘militarist’ understanding of social life.
In many respects, classical social thought shared the analytical, epistemological and even moral universe that understood war and violence as the key mechanisms of social change. The structural neglect of this rich and versatile theoretical tradition is linked to the hegemony of the normative ‘pacifist’ re-interpretation of the classics in the aftermath of two total wars of the twentieth century. The author argues that the contemporary sociology of war and violence can gain much by revisiting the key concepts and ideas of the classics."
Directory of Concepts and Schools of Thought
Theories:
Concepts:
More information
Books
* Book: The Sociology of War and Violence. Sinisa Malesevic. (2010)
"War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This new book demonstrates the importance of using sociological tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate."
* Book: The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence. By Sinisa Malesevic. (2017)
"Challenging the prevailing belief that organised violence is experiencing historically continuous decline, this book provides an in-depth sociological analysis that shows organised violence is, in fact, on the rise. Malešević demonstrates that violence is determined by organisational capacity, ideological penetration and micro-solidarity, rather than biological tendencies, meaning that despite pre-modern societies being exposed to spectacles of cruelty and torture, such societies had no organisational means to systematically slaughter millions of individuals. Malešević suggests that violence should not be analysed as just an event or process, but also via changing perceptions of those events and processes, and by linking this to broader social transformations on the inter-polity and inter-group levels he makes his key argument that organised violence has proliferated. Focusing on wars, revolutions, genocides and terrorism, this book shows how modern social organisations utilise ideology and micro-solidarity to mobilise public support for mass scale violence."