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| 1 |
ID:
110475
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| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The nature of political power has changed with the advent of modern information technology while our theories and metaphors to understand it remain wedded to earlier periods. This article begins with a discussion of some of the work done by databases in domestic and world politics. In particular, it introduces the political effects of contemporary data-management practices through short examples of terrorist information databases, the 2008 Obama campaign's database, as well as biometric databases deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Liberia. This leads to a consideration of the finite applicability and relevance of the widespread metaphor of the Panopticon to these kinds of cases. Given the limitations of such an image, the concept of digital power and the political metaphor of Cuntz's Tower are proposed. Digital power foregrounds the importance of machines for contemporary sovereignty while moving beyond ocular-centric notions of surveillance. Cuntz's Tower illustrates the power of identification and sorting in addition to the Panopticon's emphasis on self-discipline. This article acts as an initial ground-clearing exercise for more extensive analyses of databases in domestic and world politics.
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| 2 |
ID:
101605
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2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Military doctrine is a system of knowledge disseminated and communicated through field manuals. This article analyzes the form and content of United States (US) military doctrine through the study of three manuals: the joint US Army and Marine Corps'Counterinsurgency (COIN) Field Manual (FM 3-24) (2007), the US Army's Stability Operations Field Manual (FM 3-07) (2008), and the US Marine Corps'Small Wars Manual (SWM) (1940). It explores and demonstrates the discursive and cognitive restraints of such military handbooks through imitating their form. In regard to content, it argues that the contemporary "spirit of war" is characterized by the organizing concepts of "culture" and "network"-seeing like a military in the twenty-first century is seeing a world of networks.
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| 3 |
ID:
131689
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2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article introduces the concept of 'utile forms' and analyses the effects of these forms in imperial rule and contemporary counterinsurgency. Utile forms are media that enable bureaucracies to disseminate specialised knowledges to officials operating in the field. Examples include smart cards, field manuals, and handheld biometric devices. We argue that utile forms have significant social and political effects irrespective of the 'truth value' of the knowledge they contain. We analyse these effects in terms of world-ordering and world-making properties: utile forms both embody a particular worldview or ideology (world-ordering) and they facilitate official attempts to remake the world in accordance with this vision (world-making). We draw on examples of utile forms from British India and more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article concludes by reflecting on the relations between truth, knowledge, and power in times of war and imperialism.
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