Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article will argue that the concepts of repression and militarization are inadequate tools for a radical critique of the targeted and selective application of coercion and consent in efforts to (re)produce a liberal capitalist order. The article will first of all show how liberal social control is best understood as uneven processes of pacification targeting specific individuals, groups and populations through a combination of coercion and consent. Secondly, the article will examine historical and current efforts to control protest through the lens of pacification. The analytic of pacification will then be applied to broader trends in US social control. Last but not least, the article will show that the apparently technical distinctions that allow for the targeted application of coercion and/or consent frequently reflect and reinforce existing societal divisions along the lines of race, class and gender.

Keywords

crime control militarization pacification repression social control state violence

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Agamben

(1995) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Agamben

(2005) The State of Exception. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Allen

(1969) Black Awakening in Capitalist America. New York, NY: Doubleday.

American Civil Liberties Union (2014) War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. New York, NY: American Civil Liberties Union. Available at: https://http://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf (accessed 17 September 2014).

Balko

(2006) Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.

Becker

Schulz

(2011) Local police stockpile high-tech, combat-ready gear. Center for Investigative Reporting, 21 December. Available at: http://cironline.org/reports/local-police-stockpile-high-tech-combat-ready-gear-2913 (accessed 17 September 2014).

Bigart

(1968) Army helps police learn about riots. New York Times, 22 March, p. 49.

Bigo

(2008) Globalized (in)security: The field and the ban-opticon. In: Bigo

Tsoukala

(eds) Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11. New York, NY: Routledge, 10–48.

Bigo

Tsoukala

(2008) Understanding (in)security. In: Bigo

Tsoukala

(eds) Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11. New York, NY: Routledge, 1–9.

10.

Bosman

Davey

(2014) In Ferguson, preparation and anticipation as grand jury decision nears. The New York Times, 22 November. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/ferguson-grand-jury.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article (accessed 24 November 2014).

11.

Cunningham

(2004) There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counter-intelligence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

12.

Davey

Bosman

(2014) Protests flare after police officer is not indicted. The New York Times, 24 November. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/ferguson-darren-wilson-shooting-michael-brown-grand-jury.html (accessed 2 December 2014).

13.

De Lint

Hall

(2009) Intelligent Control: Developments in Public Order Policing in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

14.

Dean

(1991) The Constitution of Poverty: Towards a Genealogy of Liberal Governance. New York, NY: Routledge.

15.

Dean

(1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

16.

Dean

(2000) Liberal government and authoritarianism. Economy & Society 31(1): 37–61.

17.

Dean

(2013) The Signature of Power: Sovereignty, Governmentality and Biopolitics. London: SAGE.

18.

Democracy Now (2014) Cops or soldiers? Pentagon, DHS helped arm police in Ferguson with equipment used in war. Democracy Now, 15 August. Available at: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/15/cops_or_soldiers_pentagon_dhs_helped (accessed 16 September 2014).

19.

Department of the US Army (1968) Civil Disturbance Plan. Washington, DC: Department of the Army. Available at: http://www.governmentattic.org/2docs/DA-CivilDisturbPlanGardenPlot_1968.pdf (accessed 5 September 2013).

20.

Department of the US Army (2005) FM 3–19–15: Civil Disturbance Operations. Washington, DC: Department of the Army. Available at: http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3–19–15.pdf (accessed 30 August 2013).

21.

Department of the US Army (2014) FM 3–24 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies. Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Army. Available at: http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm3_24.pdf (accessed 17 September 2014).

22.

Ericson

Haggerty

(1997) Policing the Risk Society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

23.

Executive Office of the President (2014) Review: Federal Support for Local Law Enforcement Equipment and Acquisition. Washington, DC: The White House. Available at: http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p296-pub.pdf (accessed 3 December 2014).

24.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (1974) Training for the future. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, March.

25.

Flitcraft

(1971) Winning hearts and minds. In: National Action/Research on the Military-Industrial Complex (NARMIC) (eds) Police on the Homefront. Philadelphia, PA.: The American Friends Service Committee, 21–24.

26.

Foucault

(2000) The subject and power. In: Faubion

(ed.) Power. New York, NY: The New Press, 326–348.

27.

Foucault

(2003) Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France 1975–1976. New York, NY: Picador.

28.

Foucault

(2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

29.

Garland

(2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

30.

Gillham

(2011) Securitizing America: Strategic incapacitation and the policing of protest since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Sociology Compass 5(7): 636–652.

31.

Gillham

Edwards

Noakes

(2013) Strategic incapacitation and the policing of Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, 2011. Policing and Society 23(1): 81–102.

32.

Gordon

(1991) Governmental rationality. In: Burchell

Gordon

Miller

(eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

33.

Haggerty

Ericson

(1999) The militarization of policing in the information age. Journal of Political & Military Sociology 27(2): 233–255.

34.

Halloran

(1971a) Army in 1968 feared ‘insurgency’. The New York Times, 28 February, p. 1.

35.

Halloran

(1971b) Army spied on 18,000 civilians in 2-year operation. The New York Times, 18 January, p. 1.

36.

Halloran

(1972) Army alerted troops in ‘68 to guard candidates. The New York Times, 29 March, p. 26.

37.

Hansen

(2000) Critique of Violence. New York, NY: Routledge.

38.

Herbert

(1999) The end of the territorially-sovereign state? The case of crime control in the United States. Political Geography 18(2): 149–172.

39.

Herbert

(2006) Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community Policing. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

40.

Hindess

(2005) Politics as government: Michel Foucault’s analysis of political reason. Alternatives 30(4): 389–413.

41.

Huysmans

(2011) Security speech acts and little security nothings. Security Dialogue 42(4–5): 371–83.

42.

Kienscherf

(2011) A programme of global pacification: US counterinsurgency doctrine and the biopolitics of human (in)security Security Dialogue 42(6): 517–35.

43.

Kienscherf

(2013) US Domestic and International Regimes of Security: Pacifiying the Globe, Securing the Homeland. New York, NY: Routledge.

44.

King

(2013) Disruption is not permitted: The policing and social control of Occupy Oakland. Critical Criminology: 463–475.

45.

Knemayer

F-L

(1980) Polizei. Economy & Society 9(2): 172–96.

46.

Kraska

(1999) Militarizing criminal justice: Exploring the possibilities. Journal of Political & Military Sociology 27(2): 205–215.

47.

Kraska

(2007) Militarization and policing: Its relevance to 21st century police. Policing 1(4): 501–513.

48.

Kraska

Kappeler

(1997) Militarizing American police: The rise and normalization of paramilitary units. Social Problems 44(1): 1–18.

49.

Lewis

(2014) Obama resits demands to curtail police militarisation, calling instead for improved officer training. The Guardian, 1 December. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/01/obama-white-house-summit-ferguson (accessed 3 December 2014).

50.

Long

(2006) On ‘Other War’: Lessons from Five Decades of RAND Counterinsurgency Research. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

51.

Maguire

(2000) Policing by risks and targets: Some consequences of intelligence-led crime control. Policing and Society 9(1): 315–36.

52.

McPhail

McCarthy

(2005) Protest mobilization, protest repression, and their interaction. In: Davenport

Johnston

Mueller

(eds) Repression and Mobilization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 3–32.

53.

McPhail

Schweingruber

McCarthy

(1998) Policing protest in the United States: 1960–1995. In: Della Porta

Reiter

(eds) Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western Democracies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 49–69.

54.

Neal

(2004) Cutting off the king’s head: Foucault’s society must be defended and the problem of sovereignty. Alternatives 29(4): 373–398.

55.

Neocleous

(2000) The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power. London: Pluto Press.

56.

Neocleous

(2011a) The police of civilization: The war on terror as civilizing offensive. International Political Sociology 5(2): 144–159.

57.

Neocleous

(2011b) Security as pacification. In: Neocleous

Rigakos

(eds) Anti-Security. Ottowa: Red Quill Press.

58.

Neocleous

(2011c) ‘A brighter and nicer new life’: Security as Pacification. Social and Legal Studies 20(2): 191-208.

59.

Neocleous

(2013) The dream of pacification: Accumulation, class war, and the hunt. Socialist Studies 9(2): 7–31.

60.

Nixon

(2014) Executive Order 14–14. 17 September. Available at: http://governor.mo.gov/news/executive-orders/executive-order-14–14 (accessed 24 November 2014).

61.

O’Malley

(1992) Risk, power and crime prevention. Economy & Society 21(3): 252–269.

62.

Obama

(2014) Statement by the President. 18 August. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/18/statement-president (accessed 17 September 2014).

63.

Oliver

(2008) Repression and crime control: Why social movements scholars should pay attention to mass incarceration as a form of repression. Mobilization 13(1): 1–24.

64.

Parenti

(1999) Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis. London: Verso.

65.

Pasquino

(1993) Political-theory of war and peace: Foucault and the history of modern political-theory. Economy and Society 22(1): 77–88.

66.

Pinto

(1971) Weapons for the homefront. In: National Action/Research on the Military-Industrial Complex (NARMIC) (eds) Police on the Homefront. Philadelphia, PA.: The American Friends Service Committee, 74–89.

67.

Pyle

(1970) CONUS Intelligence: The Army watches civilian politics. The Washington Monthly 1(12): 4–16.

68.

Quinney

(1974) Critique of Legal Order: Crime Control in Capitalist Society. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.

69.

Rasmussen

(2011) The Autonomous Animal: Self-Governance and the Modern Subject. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

70.

Schmidt

(2014). In Washington, second thoughts on arming police. The New York Times, 23 August. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/us/in-washington-second-thoughts-on-arming-police.html?_r=0 (accessed 16 September 2014).

71.

Schmitt

(1996) The Concept of the Political. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

72.

Sheehan

(1968a) Army has 15,000 for riot control. The New York Times, 6 April, p. 25.

73.

Sheehan

(1968b) Army to increase riot duty troops. The New York Times, 24 April, p. 1.

74.

Simon

(1993) From confinement to waste management: The post-modernization of social control. Focus on Law Studies 8(2): 4–8.

75.

Simon

(2000) The ‘society of captives’ in the era of hyper-incarceration. Theoretical Criminology 4(3): 285–308.

76.

Simon

(2007) Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

77.

Soss

Fording

Schram

(2011) Disciplining the Poor: The Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

78.

Soule

Davenport

(2009) Velvet glove, iron fist, or even hand? Protest policing in the United States, 1960–1990. Mobilization 14(1): 1–22.

79.

Starr

Fernandez

Scholl

(2011) Shutting Down the Streets: Political Violence and Social Control in the Global Era. New York, NY: New York University Press.

80.

Tilly

(1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

81.

The New York Times (1968) Pentagon sets up riot control unit: Center will operate when troops may be needed. New York Times, 27 April, p. 35.

82.

The New York Times (2014) Tracking the events in the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting. The New York Times, 25 August. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/12/us/13police-shooting-of-black-teenager-michael-brown.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCover-age&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article-/#time348_10366 (accessed 16 September 2014).

83.

US Government (1967) Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

84.

US Army Military Police School (1972) SEADOC: Civil Disturbance Orientation Textbook. Fort Gordon, GA: United States Army Military Police School.

85.

Wacquant

(2001a) The advent of the penal state is not a destiny. Social Justice 28(3): 81–87.

86.

Wacquant

(2001b) Deadly symbiosis: When ghetto and prison meet and mesh. Punishment and Society 3(1): 95–134.

87.

Wacquant

(2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

88.

Walker

RBJ

(1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

89.

Warren

(2004) City streets – the war zones of globalization: Democracy and military operations on urban terrain in the early twenty-first century In: Graham

(ed.) Cities, War, and Terrorism. Towards an Urban Geopolitics. Oxford: Blackwell, 214–230.

90.

Webb

(1971) Back home: The campus beat. In: NARMIC (ed.) Police on the Homefront. Philadelphia, PA.: The American Friends Service Committee, 1–20.

91.

Weizman

(2011) The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza. London: Verso.

92.

Williams

(2011) The other side of the COIN: Counterinsurgency and community policing. Interface: a journal for and about social movements 3(1): 81–117.

Beyond Militarization and Repression: Liberal Social Control as Pacification

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References