In Defence of Ontogenesis and for a General Ecology of War
| Author | Antoine Bousquet |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829819873948 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book Forum |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829819873948
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2019, Vol. 48(1) 70 –78
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829819873948
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1. Jens Bartelson, War in International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2018), 15.
2. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States AD 990–1990 (Oxford: Blackwell,
1990); Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power – Vol.1: A History of Power from the
In Defence of Ontogenesis and
for a General Ecology of War
Antoine Bousquet
Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Keywords
ontogenesis, ecology of war, Bartelson, ISA theory section
With War in International Thought, Jens Bartelson sets out to show us how our visions
of political order are tributary of a violent imaginary that we are only dimly aware of
today. The study thus takes as its primary object of investigation the long-standing belief
‘that war is a productive force in human affairs that ought to be harnessed for the right
political purposes, such as the creation of order and peace’.1 Authoritatively marshalling
an impressive survey of both historical and contemporary writings, Bartelson’s main
contention is that the widespread adoption and promotion of this belief in the modern era
was instrumental to the legitimation of the emerging state form and accompanying inter-
national system. Moreover, he asserts that the persistence of this ontogenetic understand-
ing of war serves to perpetuate organised violence in the world today, foreclosing other,
more peaceful, political imaginaries. In this intervention, I will review the book’s central
arguments before making the case that, on both analytical and political grounds, we can-
not dispense with ontogenesis in the manner Bartelson enjoins us to but must instead
radicalise it in the form of a general ecology of war.
The idea that the rise of the modern state is inextricable from war is hardly new, of
course. However, Bartelson is explicitly not interested in determining the effects of war
on state formation in the manner of historical sociologists such as Charles Tilly, Michael
Mann, or Anthony Giddens.2 Instead, he is concerned exclusively with the meaning
Corresponding author:
Antoine Bousquet, Politics, Birkbeck, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
Email: a.bousquet@bbk.ac.uk
873948MIL0010.1177/0305829819873948Millennium: Journal of International StudiesBousquet
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