Beyond a politics of recrimination: Scandal, ethics and the rehabilitation of violence

Abstract

The practice of contemporary warfare seems to be plagued by scandal. It is often assumed that the act of bearing witness to these moments of ethical failure, in which the relationship between the martial and the ethical breaks down, plays an important role in holding powerful actors to account for their conduct. Considerable faith has been placed in the role of transparency and truth-telling as foundations for normative engagements with war. This article argues that we must be cautious about this investment. Drawing on the work of Jean Baudrillard, this article offers a method for critically reading scandals as a series of line-drawing manoeuvres. Taken together, these manoeuvres demonstrate how scandals function to enable, excuse and obscure the complex landscapes of violence that define the spectacular and mundane sites of contemporary war. Reducing critical engagements with violent practices to a logic of recrimination, scandals often function to revitalise the very principles they appear to contest. Focusing upon the socio-political implications of wartime scandals, this article demonstrates that the performative force of scandals is therefore the reproduction of a violent status quo rather than opening up new spaces for imagining less violent futures. Offering a critical reading of controversies relating to the provision of humanitarian assistance and education in Afghanistan, this article reflects on the ambiguities and anxieties of critiquing violence.

The Military Scandal: Its Definition, Dynamics, and Significance

“…Or, even, news media texts? Habiba (2017), Wadham (2016), Johnson (2017), Crosbie (2015), and Crosbie and Sass (2017), each demonstrate a different approach to the subject at hand.…”

“…As with Wadham (2016), Johnson (2017) adopts a critical approach and uses the work of Baudrillard to argue that military scandals are “not a neutral moment of exposure” (p. 705) but rather are brought about through a “process of narration” (p. 717) by which the violated normative order is affirmed as valued and valuable in the course of denouncing the words and deeds that are determined to have breached said order. Johnson argues that military scandals fulfill a “socio-political function” (p. 704) that legitimates a normative order of appropriate state violence while simultaneously stigmatizing transgressive acts and ethical lapses as illegitimate excesses of state violence.…”

“…As well, Wadham (2016) observes that the interactions between officials, civil society actors, and military personnel during a scandal are not only informed by the transgression but also by the performative needs that said actors perceive to be necessary to and for representing their respective institutions. Finally, as Johnson (2017) contends, military scandals can serve to affirm and reproduce the military institution as a legitimate instrument of state violence.…”

“…Through scandals, state authorities and civil society can try to regulate the military institution while the latter works to maintain institutional autonomy by resisting external interventions and trying to control outcomes. Herein, a strong account of the military scandal is important for understanding modern military institutions and how they are reproduced and reformed in mediatized societies (Johnson, 2017; Maltby, 2012a, 2012b; Wadham, 2016).…”

“…Hence, they sometimes serve as uncommon case studies for media and communications research. Recently though, scholars such as Crosbie (2015), Wadham (2016), Habiba (2017), Crosbie and Sass (2017), and Johnson (2017) have sought to clarify and articulate the significance of military scandals. These valuable contributions go some way toward demystifying this phenomenon, but the accounts presented are brief and mainly focus on specific episodes.…”