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Economy of Force

Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Social

Patricia Owens author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:1st Sep '16

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This book presents a thought-provoking history of counterinsurgency, exploring its implications for social, political, and international theory. It examines household governance and its influence on modern political and military strategies.

Economy of Force presents a thought-provoking exploration of counterinsurgency, shedding light on its significant implications for the history and theory of warfare, as well as for social, political, and international thought. The author revisits the often-overlooked concept of household governance, or oikonomikos, to provide a fresh perspective on the evolution of social theory and its relevance to contemporary issues. This approach not only enriches our understanding of historical dynamics but also invites scholars and advanced students in the humanities and social sciences to reconsider the connections between domestic ideologies and broader political contexts.

The book argues that the techniques and ideologies associated with household administration have a surprising portability, influencing international and imperial relations. By examining case studies from late-colonial British experiences in Malaya and Kenya, alongside U.S. counterinsurgencies in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the author illustrates how armed social work can be seen as a continuation of household governance practices. This lens challenges traditional views of politics and warfare, suggesting that social strategies often underpin military actions.

Overall, Economy of Force is a historically rich and theoretically innovative work that engages with critical issues in social theory, international relations, and the history of war. It promises to captivate scholars and students alike, encouraging them to delve deeper into the intersections of domestic governance and global conflict. Through its radical reinterpretation of counterinsurgency, the book contributes significantly to ongoing discussions in political and social studies.

'This is a genuinely groundbreaking piece of work. It presents a serious and sophisticated challenge to the broad spectrum of international theories and more generally to the domain of social science.' Kimberley Hutchings, Queen Mary University of London
'Finally, a definitive work that traces the historical emergence and imperial deployment of the 'social'. With meticulous care and scholarly precision, Owens uncovers how the concept of the social has been put in service of imperial militaries around the world, revealing that 'armed social work' became a dominant tactic of counterinsurgency. Rather than an innocuous notion or neutral object of investigation, the very idea of the 'social' has been a tool of empire. This path-breaking work is a must read for anyone interested in social science, militaries, empires and postcolonial studies.' Julian Go, Boston University, Massachusetts and author of Patterns of Empire
'In this breathtaking work, Owens unsettles the field of International Relations and contributes enormously to Political Theory as well. Contra realist and liberal traditions, she says the moderation of violence and provision of basic needs in modern society has been the fundamental basis of household rule, not political freedom. From this radical vantage point, Owens documents the operations of counterinsurgency in Malaya, Kenya, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq to offer an entirely new angle on so-called 'armed social work'. Almost no assumptions about humanitarianism, resistance, war, realism, women's rights, the social, or the political remains untouched by her powerful genealogical analysis.' Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Political Science, Brown University, Rhode Island
'Economy of Force reveals the deep entanglement of counterinsurgency with a depoliticizing construct of the social that has motivated, guided, and justified almost two centuries of bloody and failed wars of pacification. Weaving together a compelling account of political theory from Aristotle to Weber and beyond with incisive case studies of counterinsurgencies, Owens shows how a concept of the social modelled on the domestic sphere has blinded counterinsurgent strategists to the politics of their adversaries, initiating a range of 'domestic' approaches from so-called armed social work to the planned destruction of villages and mass internment of civilians in the gulag utopias of imperial social planners. This is a compelling and important book for a wide range of fields, as well as for anybody concerned by the seemingly unstoppable compulsion of western states to carry out tragic and brutal interventions around the world.' Andrew Zimmerman, George Washington University, Washington DC
'In this imaginative and stimulating text, Owens elucidates the devastating erasure of politics via tropes and practices of 'household administration' that allows for the violence and viciousness of counterinsurgencies to be reinterpreted as 'armed social work'.' Laleh Khalili, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
'This is a wickedly smart and a very much needed book … radical and disorienting in the very best sense.' Dustin Ells Howes, David J. Kriskovich Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University
'Through a combination of historical perspective on the colonial world and contemporary inquiry into the imperial enterprise, Economy of Force invites us to rethink the laws of warfare and politics of counterinsurgency by paying attention to the pacification of local populations understood as a form of domestication. It thus unveils the genealogy of the blurred line between military and humanitarian interventions.' Didier Fassin, coeditor of Contemporary States of Emergency

ISBN: 9781107545687

Dimensions: 230mm x 153mm x 22mm

Weight: 560g

382 pages