Against network thinking: A critique of pathological sovereignty
| Author | Martin Coward |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117705704 |
E
JR
I
https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117705704
European Journal of
International Relations
2018, Vol. 24(2) 440 –463
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354066117705704
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
Against network thinking:
A critique of pathological
sovereignty
Martin Coward
University of Manchester, UK
Abstract
This article advances a critique of network thinking and the pathological sovereignty
that it gives rise to. The network is ubiquitous as a metaphor for understanding the
social, economic and political dynamics of the contemporary era. Implicitly drawing on
an analogy with communications infrastructures such as the telegraph or internet, the
network metaphor represents global politics in terms of nodes related to one another
through conduit-like links. I begin by demonstrating the widespread nature of network
thinking and outline the way in which conventional metaphors structure both thinking and
action. I then recreate an episodic history of network thinking in order to demonstrate
the key entailments of the network metaphor. I argue that there are four entailments
of network thinking: the prioritisation of connectivity; the identification of novel actors;
de-territorialisation; and a lack of concern for contiguity and context. The article then
outlines the corresponding political and ethical consequences that follow from these
entailments, specifically: fantasies of precision; new threat imaginaries; unboundedness;
and a failure to attend to culture and community. I contend that network thinking
gives rise to a pathological sovereignty whose dual faces can be seen in drone strikes
and invasive surveillance. Finally, I argue that thinking beyond the network requires
us to foreground the importance of contiguity and context in understanding global
politics. This article contributes both a novel theoretical framework for challenging the
hegemony of network thinking and an ethical call for greater recognition of the harm
caused by pathological sovereignty.
Keywords
Assemblages, critique, culture, metaphor, networks, pathological sovereignty
Corresponding author:
Dr Martin Coward, Politics, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester,
M13 9PL, UK.
Email: martin.coward@manchester.ac.uk
705704EJT0010.1177/1354066117705704European Journal of International RelationsCoward
research-article2017
Article
Coward 441
Introduction
The concept of the network has become ‘a familiar feature of international politics’
(Hafner-Burton et al., 2009: 559). Understood as a series of linked nodes, networks are
characterised as de-territorialised, non-hierarchical, flexible and durable (Podolny and
Page, 1998: 59; Powell, 1990). Networking is normally attributed to social, economic,
technological and political forces associated with the dynamics of globalisation. In par-
ticular, networks are represented as capitalising on the space-time compression enabled
by information technology to generate de-territorialised webs of relationships (Castells,
2010). As a consequence, the network implies the emergence of novel structures, dynam-
ics and actors. In particular, it indicates the erosion and reconfiguration of the inter-state,
and thus the international, order by transnational or global linkages and flows and the
distinctive actors, organisations and politics that these generate.
The network is widespread in representations of contemporary politics. In the disci-
plines of Political Science and International Relations, the use of network analysis is ‘a
growing part of the broader agenda’ of research (Ward et al., 2011: 259). Insofar as poli-
tics is understood as a ‘relational phenomenon’ (Lazer, 2011: 66), the network has been
seen as offering an ideal representational, conceptual and methodological tool for the
analysis of such relations (Hafner-Burton et al., 2009). Indeed, the growing importance
of the network in the scholarly analysis of politics was recognised in the establishment
of a section of the American Political Science Association specifically focused on
Political Networks (Lazer, 2011), with its own annual conference.
At the intersection of academic research and media representations, the network has
also served as a metaphor for an array of contemporary social and political phenomena.
For example, discussions of political violence in the post-Cold War, and particularly the
post-9/11, era have focused on the networked character of emerging threats. Warlords,
paramilitaries, militias, terrorists, cybercriminals and even rogue nuclear scientists such
as A.Q. Khan have all been described as networked threats (Albright and Hinderstein,
2005;Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 2001; Bunker, 2005; The Economist, 2004, 2008). This ten-
dency to see emerging threats as networked is most commonly invoked in relation to
so-called jihadi terrorism such as that attributed to Al-Qaeda (Barber, 2015; Krebs, 2002;
Sageman, 2004). Such actors are typically represented as deriving novel capabilities and
potency from their networked form, such as the ability to launch omnidirectional attacks,
their resilience to efforts to interdict their activities, the capacity to evade surveillance by
those that would counter them and an enhanced facility for learning, communication and
finance.
The representation of networks as novel and potent principles of global order has been
similarly prominent in discussions of global governance. Arising initially in relation to
the emergence of distinctive transnational epistemic and activist communities, the con-
cept of the network was deployed to understand the manner in which information tech-
nology and air travel were facilitating direct linkages between experts and activists
(Keck and Sikkink, 1998, 1999; Slaughter, 2004). These links are represented as running
across, rather than obeying, the territorial principles of the inter-state order, short-circuit-
ing its hierarchical state-centric principles (Reinicke, 1999). Thus, global norms (and the
legal and policy frameworks in which they are embedded) are increasingly set not
To continue reading
Request your trial