Fighting to be God: A Bourdieusian critique of the challenge of humanitarian disarmament to the State

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1801-2026-0010

Keywords:

Humanitarian disarmament, autonomous weapons, symbolic violence, the State, Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

Abstract

This article examines the epistemic and critical potential of the Bourdieusian notion of the State as a dual monopoly of legitimised physical and symbolic violence. Despite growing use of Bourdieu’s sociological theory in International Relations over the past two decades, this notion remains underexplored in a highly relevant area: the analysis of humanitarian disarmament. It is precisely this notion, I argue, that enables a more precise, nuanced understanding about how humanitarian disarmers challenge not the State’s monopoly over lethal force, but its exclusive control over determining il/legitimate means of violence. By scrutinising the discourse of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the article demonstrates how campaigners compete with the State’s claim to act for the universal interest with their own invocations to the universalist discourse of humanity. Their universal affectations, however, are confined to the sanctity of the liberal State as the authorised holder of the right to wage war.

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Author Biography

  • Ivar Vargas, University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, UK

    Political ethnographer based in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Melbourne and a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh. Ivar’s research interests revolve around the politics of humanitarianism and human rights, disarmament and arms control, and Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology.

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Published

2026-03-19

How to Cite

Fighting to be God: A Bourdieusian critique of the challenge of humanitarian disarmament to the State. (2026). Desde El Sur, 18(1), e0010. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1801-2026-0010

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