Jolle Demmers - Theories of Violent Conflict: An Introduction

First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 Jolle Demmers

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Demmers, Jolle, 1969 author.
Title: Theories of violent conflict : an introduction / Jolle Demmers.
Description: Second edition. | Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York,
NY : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016006777 | ISBN 9781138856394 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138856400 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315715025 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: War (Philosophy) | Political violenceSocial aspects.
Classification: LCC JZ6390 .D46 2017 | DDC 303.6dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006777

ISBN: 978-1-138-85639-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-85640-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71502-5 (ebk)

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When I was completing the second edition of this book in December 2015, two Somali nomads announced on a Dutch news website that they were planning to take legal action against the Netherlands. While herding their cattle south of Mogadishu, the two men had fallen victim to a drone attack. They were hit by an American missile that was aiming to target a convoy of cars allegedly transporting members of the Al Shabaab organization. One nomad lost both his daughters, was severely injured himself and saw most of his cattle annihilated. The two men hold the Dutch state accountable for the American drone attack. Over the past years, the Dutch military intelligence agency (MIVD) has intercepted millions of telephone calls and texts messages by Somalis by means of a satellite receiver stationed in the small Frisian village of Burum. The mobile phone meta-data (collected for an anti-piracy operation named Ocean Shield) was shared with the American NSA, and allegedly used to plan the drone attack. According to the Dutch lawyer representing the victims, these actions are culpably negligent. By providing telecom data to the NSA, the Netherlands is considered co-responsible for the attacks.

Violent conflict and warfare have become increasingly remote and interconnected at the same time, tying people and places together in unprecedented ways. In the four years separating this second edition with the publication of the first edition of Theories of Violent Conflict , it is the increasing interconnectedness of violence that strikes me as most significantly new. This adds to the ongoing challenge for students of violent conflict to unravel the complexity of the web of relations and alliances producing contemporary war and violence, and the ways clusters of conflict cross-infect and exacerbate each other. The multifacetedness of todays violent conflict calls for researchers who can draw on a multiplicity of analytical vocabularies. In this second edition, apart from case-study updates, I have included a number of new voices and directions. Among them are ideas on assemblage analytics, new sections on the conceptualization of violence (and how it differs from aggression), religion and extremism, and more explicit references to gender, post-colonial studies and performance studies. Also, this second edition includes a more elaborate discussion of the critical political economy approach to violent conflict and addresses the spatial and practice turn in the field. Again, students in the MA Conflict Studies and Human Rights at Utrecht University were of invaluable help in thinking through the selected approaches, offering feedback and pointing out new directions. In many ways, this new edition is the product of our collaboration. Working at the Centre for Conflict Studies is fun and a privilege thanks to Chris van der Borgh, Mario Fumerton, Georg Frerks, Luuk Slooter, Lauren Gould, Nora Stel, Toon Dirkx, Niels Terpstra and Floor Zweerink. I am grateful to the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) for providing me with a writing grant, which enabled me to write the first edition of the book. In addition, I am indebted to Andrew Humphrys and Hannah Ferguson from Routledge for their patience and professional support and to Routledges anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. Sameer and Manu Mehendale were crucial supporters, first-readers and designers at the home front. I dedicate this book in loving memory to my academic mentor Alex E. Fernndez Jilberto.