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Power in Policing Wars

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Policing Wars

Part of the book series: Rethinking Political Violence Series ((RPV))

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Abstract

Implicit in any understanding of war is an account also of power; this we learn from Clausewitz’ understanding of war as ‘an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will’. Neither ‘force’ nor the act of ‘compelling’ can be essentially grasped without also accepting some conception of power embedded therein. In other words, if phenomenologically we cannot separate ‘war’ from ‘power’, then reasonably a conception of one implies a conception also of the other. In this chapter we arrive, then, at the unpacking of a third foundational dimension of the contemporary discourse on war as policing — the conceptions of power upon which it rests.

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Notes

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  1. Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, Sweden

    Caroline Holmqvist

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  1. Caroline Holmqvist
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© 2014 Caroline Holmqvist

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Holmqvist, C. (2014). Power in Policing Wars. In: Policing Wars. Rethinking Political Violence Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137323613_5

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