Militarization and the Global Rise of Paramilitary Culture: Post-Heroic Reimaginings of the Warrior

This edited book demonstrates a new multidimensional comprehension of the relationship between war, the military and civil society by exploring the global rise of paramilitary culture. Moving beyond binary understandings that inform the militarization of culture thesis and examining various national and cultural contexts, the collection outlines ways in which a process of paramilitarization is shaping the world through the promotion of new warrior archetypes. It is argued that while the paramilitary hero is associated with military themes, their character is in tension with the central principals of modern military organization, something that often challenges the state’s perceived monopoly on violence. As such paramilitization has profound implications for institutional military identity, the influence of paramilitary organizations and broadly how organised violence is popularly understood

Brad West is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of South Australia. He publishes widely on civil military relations, including around themes of commemoration and military to civilian transition. He is a Faculty Fellow at the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology and has previously held academic posts at the University of Bristol, Flinders University and Kings College London. Amongst his professional duties he is co-President of the Research Committee on Sociological Theory in the International Sociological Association and sits on the advisory editorial boards of the American Journal of Cultural Sociology and Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies. He is the author of Re-enchanting Nationalisms: Rituals and Remembrances in a Postmodern Age (2015, Springer) , editor of War Commemoration and Memory (2017, Routledge) and co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Sociology (2016) on War, the Military and Civil Society.

Thomas Crosbie is an Associate Professor of Military Studies and Military Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College. His research is focused on the nexus between domestic political processes and military organization. He has published more than a dozen articles on the related topics of military politics, civil-military relations, military professionalism, military scandal and the privatization of security. He is a chief editor of The Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies and co-edited The Sociology of Privatized Security (Palgrave Macmillan).