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Violence of war, ontopology, and the instrumental and performative constitution of the political community
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2017
Abstract
This article considers a neglected question in International Relations, namely how violence of war contributes to the constitution of the political community at the intersection between war and peace. It exposes limitations of means-ends, instrumental understanding of war violence due to the overlooking of violence’s performative attributes stemming from the centrality of bodily injuries in war. The instrumental violence on which the constitution of the political community is grounded finds expression in an order of representation that can be termed ontopology, and a pervasive – circular – relationship between ontopology and violence insofar as ontopology has inspired extreme forms of human behaviour and also been used to justify violence as a means to enact an ontopological goal. Yet, recognising the role of bodily injuries in the course of fighting allows for a more complete understanding of war. Crucially it enables an interpretation of the structure of war as a relation between war’s interior content – casualties in war – and the exterior, verbal issues standing outside it (pertaining to security, identity, sovereignty, authority, ideology), that lead to a surrogate contest of reimagining political community in the process of which performative power of violence contributes directly to the emerging post-war peace and laws that justify it.
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References
1 Peace is not only difficult to achieve, it is also a complex term that defies an all-encompassing definition. At a basic level, peace tends to be understood as absence of war or physical violence, a notion which Johan Galtung termed ‘negative peace’ as opposed to ‘positive peace’, which denotes structural conditions conducive to political equality and social and economic justice. Galtung, Johan, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilisation (Oslo: PRIO, 1996)Google Scholar. However, in analytical terms it is not very helpful to define peace and war as opposites because peace and war carry the seeds of each other. ‘There are pieces of war in peacetime and pieces of peace in war.’ Christine Sylvester, ‘Experiencing war: an introduction’, in Christine Sylvester (ed.), Experiencing War (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 1. Violence can be present both in peace and war – as will be shown below.
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74 The debate on how to respond to the problems of ontopology remains open. Campbell has proposed a non-ontopological multiculturalism as a radical critique of ontopology. Campbell, National Deconstruction, p. 169. Dan Bulley, however, has suggested that non-ontopological multiculturalism is impossible because it always retains elements of ontopology within itself. Bulley stresses the need for an ‘at-home’ as a basis for any hospitality. ‘In terms of Bosnian identity … a negotiating de-essentialised ontopological conception “at-home” would allow possibilities of articulating what it “is” to “be” “Bosnian”; of what “Bosnia” “is”. … It would permit the possibility of a hospitality, a welcoming of others… [A] negotiating de-essentialised ontopology allows the Bosnian “at-home” to enact an ethical relation to the other [Serbian and Croat] as host (hôte)’. Bulley, Dan, ‘Negotiating ethics: Campbell, ontopology and hospitality’, Review of International Studies, 32:4 (2006), pp. 645–663 (p. 661)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bulley’s argument is sophisticated but not entirely convincing. For one the referents of ‘topos’ (Whose topos?) and hospitality (Whose hospitality?) are not clear. Can war victims and their communities realistically be expected to show the hospitality Bulley advocates? And what exactly is ‘at-home’ in Bosnia, or Palestine, or Kurdish territories? Dangers of ontopological primacy manifested in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other war crimes remain an ongoing challenge that may not be possible to overcome by theoretical negotiating between the poles of mono-cultural ontopology and non-ontopological multiculturalism.
75 Sylvester, War as Experience, p. 65.
76 Ibid.
77 On the structure of war, refer to Scarry, The Body in Pain, p. 63.
78 Scarry, The Body in Pain, p. 128.
79 Ibid., p. 121.
80 Ibid., p. 124.
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89 Ibid., p. 35.
90 Ibid., p. 36.
91 There are many interpretative issues in the Genocide Convention that can be challenged. Space does not allow this article to engage fully with the merits of the Convention. I refer briefly to two interpretative aspects – namely that of the limited assertion of genocidal intent and state responsibility for genocide – to give expression to Derrida’s point that interpretation, performative function, of law is violence without ground that depends entirely on who interprets the law. Unresolved, ‘violent’ matters of interpretation in the Genocide Convention can be raised also about meaning of ‘group’ (which in the Convention’s terms depend on ethnic formulations), and the expression ‘in whole or in part’. These are treated in Aquilina, Kevin and Mulaj, Klejda, ‘Limitations in attributing state responsibility under the Genocide Convention’, Journal of Human Rights, 16 (2017), doi: 10.1080/14754835.2017.1300521 Google Scholar. The legal definition of genocide is cited in the following footnote.
92 Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as: ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’
93 Figures from {http://unictr.unmict.org/en/cases} and {http://www.icty.org/specials/srebrenica20/?q=srebrenica20} respectively.
94 Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, p. 260.
95 International Court of Justice (ICJ), Bosnia and Hercegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, 2007, ICJ Reports 2007 (I).
96 The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has referred to the concept of Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) in several of its judgements. See, in particular, ICTY, Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić, Appeal Judgement, Case No. IT-94-1-A (1999), paras 195–226, available at: {http://www.icty.org/x/cases/tadic/acjug/en/tad-aj990715e.pdf}. The ICTY returned to the JCE concept, most recently, in its Karadžić’s judgement. ICTY, Prosecutor v. Radovan Karadžić, IT-95-5/18-T, 2016, paras 560–70, 3237, 3524, 5680, 5731, 5737, 5821, 5831, 5849, and 5998. Para. 560: ‘When two or more persons act together to further a common criminal purpose, the jurisprudence of the Tribunal recognises three forms of criminal responsibility which may accrue to all members of the group. The first, “basic” category of JCE encompasses situations where all participants, acting pursuant to a common purpose, possess the same criminal intention to effectuate that purpose. The second, “systemic” form of JCE pertains to organised systems of ill-treatment. The third, “extended” type of JCE involves the liability of a JCE participant for a crime which falls outside the common purpose or design, but which is nevertheless a natural and foreseeable consequence of effectuating that common purpose.’ See {http://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/tjug/en/160324_judgement.pdf}.
97 Derrida, ‘Force of law’, p. 37.
98 Arendt, On Violence, p. 53.
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100 Derrida, Specters of Marx, pp. 102–3.
101 Sylvester, Experiencing War; Sylvester, War as Experience.