Introduction

It might seem paradoxical to write about the contemporary sociology of war and violence since, strictly speaking, there is no such field of study. Not only are there no established specialised journals or professional organisations within sociology that focus exclusively on warfare but there are very few, if any, books and journal articles that study the relationship between social structure, agency and wars or other forms of organised violence. Unlike political science, anthropology, geography, international relations, security studies and military history where warfare and violence receive extensive coverage resulting in numerous books and articles and well developed research paradigms, contemporary sociology has little to offer in this regard. This is not to say that there are no individual sociologists who study war and violence or that these topics have not been tackled by those within sociology whose research interests lie primarily elsewhere. The point is that contemporary mainstream sociology, unlike its classical predecessors, remains intractable in its near absolute ignoring of warfare. Such obdurateness has resulted in the complete marginalisation of the research field, even though its focus is one of the most important sociological phenomena that has profoundly shaped the history of human sociality: warfare. Moreover, this neglect within the discipline has created a situation where an overwhelming number of studies dealing with warfare and organised violence lack any sociological grounding.