par Olsson, Christian
Référence Alternatives, 38, 2, page (155-171)
Publication Publié, 2013-05-15
Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Drawing on a critical engagement with the claims made by (and interpretations of) the 2006US army and marine corps field manual on “Counterinsurgency”, the aim of this article is totease out some of its underlying questions with regards to the problematic relation betweenviolence, legitimacy and political order. Since this doctrine draws heavily on often quotedcommonplaces of political sciences, we here want to take stock of these, unveil theirproblematic pre-suppositions and ascertain how these assumptions play out in contemporarywarfare. In a nutshell, our argument is that, while the encounter of legitimacy and violence isclaimed by the doctrine to produce and maintain political order, its framing of this encounteris deeply rooted in a specific political order, the one of the modern state, which severelyconstrains the conditions under which this encounter can take place. These constraints, weargue, cast serious doubt on many of the doctrine’s assertions and shed light on some of theillusions that it harbours in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and, until recently, in Iraq.