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This paper deals with the transnational relations of non-state armed organizations. The question is why the organizationally more successful armed groups tend to revolve around transnational networks. The hypothesis is that it has to do with the way in which they generate cohesion within their combat units. Armed groups, especially clandestine ones, tend to co-opt parochial micro-solidarity networks for the purpose of maximizing small-unit military cohesion. At the level of the wider organization, however, this entails a significant risk: societal micro-cleavages between local networks tend to create rifts within the wider organization. This is especially the case for groups that initially have no access to centralized bureaucracies able to arbitrate local struggles through anonymous rule. The paper argues that their leaders can in this context harness transnational relations to distance themselves (physically and symbolically) from these struggles, thus allowing them to arbitrate these struggles from a position of "neutrality". The article focuses on Lebanese Hezbollah and its transnational clerical networks. In developing the argument, it highlights that the religious nature of these clerical networks was only indirectly a source of organizational cohesion. What matters is that their long-distance character allowed weaving together previously opposed shortrange networks.

This paper deals with the transnational relations of non-state armed organizations. The question is why the organizationally more successful armed groups tend to revolve around transnational networks. The hypothesis is that it has to do with the way in which they generate cohesion within their combat units. Armed groups, especially clandestine ones, tend to co-opt parochial micro-solidarity networks for the purpose of maximizing small-unit military cohesion. At the level of the wider organization, however, this entails a significant risk: societal micro-cleavages between local networks tend to create rifts within the wider organization. This is especially the case for groups that initially have no access to centralized bureaucracies able to arbitrate local struggles through anonymous rule. The paper argues that their leaders can in this context harness transnational relations to distance themselves (physically and symbolically) from these struggles, thus allowing them to arbitrate these struggles from a position of "neutrality". The article focuses on Lebanese Hezbollah and its transnational clerical networks. In developing the argument, it highlights that the religious nature of these clerical networks was only indirectly a source of organizational cohesion. What matters is that their long-distance character allowed weaving together previously opposed shortrange networks. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The notion of the criminalization of the state is paradoxical. On the one hand, the idea that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" might shed light on the potentially criminal behaviour of state-officials. On the other, the assumption that legal rules are general and anonymous, that they apply identically to everybody (and that allows defining these elites as criminals), is in its contemporary form linked to the bureaucratic rule of the state itself. In this commentary on the contributions to this special issue, I address this and other paradoxes of the state with regards to the relation between politics and criminality. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Une des lignes de force qui traversent la revue Cultures&Conflits depuis ses débuts a trait à l'épuisement relatif de l'heuristique clausewitzienne de « l'ascension aux extrêmes » de la guerre. Nous analysons ici les implications et la portée de ces analyses des conflits avec une vision rétrospective sur les trente années écoulées. Les concepts heuristiques de Clausewitz (duel, ascension, polarisation), et plus largement les modèles centripètes des conflits armés de la science politique contemporaine (d'un part celui des compétitions éliminatoires jusqu'au monopole territorial dans les guerres civiles, d'autre part celui des centralisations compétitives jusqu'à « l'indifférenciation fonctionnelle » des Etats dans les guerres internationales) doivent être considérablement complexifiées, si l'on veut comprendre les conflits multi-centrés contemporains de manière multi-scalaire. Dans la majorité de ceux-ci, forces centrifuges et centripètes coexistent et font s'entrelacer de multiples niveaux d'interaction politique, du 'local' au 'mondial'. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Dans cet article, nous portons un regard critique sur la théorie de la sécurisation de « l'école de Copenhague » en partant de l'idée que ses applications empiriques ont jusqu'ici eu tendance à évacuer des études de sécurité la question de la violence réciproque, de la coercition physique et de la guerre. Nous essayons en particulier de voir à quelles conditions un débat fructueux pourrait être noué entre « l'école de Copenhague » d'une part, et une sociologie critique des conflits armés, d'autre part. Il y a en effet dans les travaux inspirés par « l'école de Copenhague » un tropisme pour des objets de recherche qui ne permettent pas de se poser la question – pourtant centrale du point de vue de la sociologie des conflits et de la sociologie historique de l'État – du rôle de la menace proférée et de la coercition, conçues comme énoncés performatifs, dans la construction sociale des problèmes de sécurité.

Dans cet article, nous portons un regard critique sur la théorie de la sécurisation de « l'école de Copenhague » en partant de l'idée que ses applications empiriques ont jusqu'ici eu tendance à évacuer la question de la violence réciproque, de la coercition physique et de la guerre des études de sécurité. Nous essayons en particulier de voir à quelles conditions un débat fructueux pourrait être noué entre « l'école de Copenhague » d'une part, une sociologie critique des conflits armés d'autre part. Il y a en effet dans les travaux inspirés par « l'école de Copenhague » un tropisme pour des objets de recherche qui ne permettent pas de se poser la question – pourtant centrale du point de vue de la sociologie des conflits et la sociologie historique de l'Etat – du rôle de la menace proférée et de la coercition, conçues comme énoncés performatif, dans la construction sociale des problèmes de sécurité. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Drawing on a critical engagement with the claims made by (and interpretations of) the 2006 US army and marine corps field manual on "Counterinsurgency," this article engages some of its underlying concerns with the problematic relation between violence, legitimacy, and political order. Since this manual draws heavily on many commonplaces of contemporary political science, the analysis explores their problematic presuppositions and the ways in which they play out in contemporary warfare. The primary conclusion is that while the encounter of legitimacy and violence is claimed by the doctrine to produce and maintain political order, its framing of this encounter is deeply rooted in a specific political order, that of the modern state, which severely constrains the conditions under which this encounter can take place. These constraints cast serious doubts on many of the doctrine's assertions, especially as they have shaped recent wars in Afghanistan and, until recently, in Iraq.

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. ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published