Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

229

Political Sociology and the War on Terror. Part I

RC18 Political Sociology (host committee)

Language: English

This session is devoted to the presentation of papers that assess the implications of political sociology for an understanding of the war on terror (WOT) and the possibilities of peace. 
Possible topics: 

• Critique of the WOT as a mode of power and domination, a tactic deployed in the politics of Empire, the reassertion of Western hegemony, the dominance of the US power elite in global affairs, the world political-economy and neoliberalism; 
• Cycles of war, more or less frequent interventions around the world, more or less frequent campaigns of high-tech homicide bombings and drone warfare; the short- or long-term consequence of the WOT; 
• Cycles of “terror” and “counter-terrorism” and the emergence of police-states; an intensification of surveillance and securitization of individuals and populations, oppositional groups; 
• The biopolitics of the war, the narrowing of the objects of knowledge in the field of political violence to “criminology”; stigmatizing oppositional groups; 
• The possibilities of more utopian long-term consequences; a radical intensification of democracy, a new birth of emancipatory politics, a reduction in political violence, new forms of democracy, etc.

Posters: