From Bismarck to Petraeus: The question of the social and the Social Question in counterinsurgency

Abstract

This article situates ‘population-centric’ counterinsurgency in the context of the modern rise of the social realm as a distinct form of space and mode of governance. The first part establishes the historical novelty of the concept of the social in the history of political thought and describes the ontology of the modern social realm. The second section discusses one powerful response to the ‘Social Question’ within international theory: the convergence between realpolitik and socialpolitik identified by two founders of modern realism. Max Weber developed his understanding of the requirements of political order in the context of the emerging German administrative/welfare state, or Sozialstaat, which Otto von Bismarck had founded. We focus on this case not to endorse realist political strategy but to illuminate the continuing relevance of this paradigm of social regulation, which is at work in recent US-led counterinsurgency theory and practice.