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3 - Policing and global governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Mark Laffey
Affiliation:
Lectures on international politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London
Jutta Weldes
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in International Relations University of Bristol
Michael Barnett
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Raymond Duvall
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Summary

In a brilliant discussion of power in world politics, Cynthia Enloe has argued that, while much of international relations scholarship has been obsessed with power, the discipline has in fact dramatically “underestimat[ed] the amounts and varieties of power it takes to form and sustain any given set of relationships between states” (1996: 186). She criticizes in particular the tendency of IR scholars to study only the powerful on the assumption that such a focus will provide insights into and explanations of world politics. Instead, she argues, if we focus on the “margins, silences and bottom rungs” (ibid.: 188), we can see the myriad forms and the astonishing amounts of power that are required for the system to exist at all. In this chapter we take up Enloe's challenge. Specifically, we explore power in global governance by examining the increase in and transformation of policing that accompanies, and indeed helps to produce, the globalization of a neoliberal form of capitalist restructuring. Examining mundane practices of policing long ignored within a discipline more attentive to the upper reaches of state power enables us to demonstrate the massive amounts and the intricate relations of power that underpin what Peck and Tickell term the “neoliberalization” of social spaces and relations (2002). These policing practices, we argue, are integral to contemporary global governance and implicate power in all its forms. Beginning with coercion or compulsory power, we trace out the workings of global governance through institutional, structural, and productive forms of power as well.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Policing and global governance
    • By Mark Laffey, Lectures on international politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, Jutta Weldes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations University of Bristol
  • Edited by Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota, Raymond Duvall, University of Minnesota
  • Book: Power in Global Governance
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491207.003
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  • Policing and global governance
    • By Mark Laffey, Lectures on international politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, Jutta Weldes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations University of Bristol
  • Edited by Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota, Raymond Duvall, University of Minnesota
  • Book: Power in Global Governance
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491207.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Policing and global governance
    • By Mark Laffey, Lectures on international politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, Jutta Weldes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations University of Bristol
  • Edited by Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota, Raymond Duvall, University of Minnesota
  • Book: Power in Global Governance
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491207.003
Available formats
×