Martialling Peace - (Advances in Critical Military Studies) by Nicole Wegner

About the Book

Examines the mythology of the peacekeeper and how it functions to sustain militarism in global politics

Book Synopsis

This is a not a book about peacekeeping practices. This is a book about storytelling, fantasies, and the ways that people connect emotionally to myths about peacekeeping. The celebration of peacekeeping as a legitimate and desirable use of military force is expressed through the unproblematized acceptance of militarism. Introducing a novel framework--martial peace--the book offers an in-depth examination of the Canadian Armed Forces missions to Afghanistan and the use of police violence against Indigenous protests in Canada as case examples where military violence has been justified in the name of peace. It critically investigates the peacekeeper myth and challenges the academic, government, and popular beliefs that martial violence is required to sustain peace.

Review Quotes

A must-read in military and security studies, Martialling Peace rocks inherited assumptions that 'peacekeeping' decreases conflict. Wegner compellingly demonstrates that peacekeeping encourages and legitimates, rather than tempering, war. Building on feminist theory, discourse analysis, and careful empirical work on the Canadian context, this book deconstructs the deeply problematic peacekeeping myth.-- "Laura Sjoberg, Royal Holloway, University of London"

How does peacekeeping maintain its seemingly inviolable image as a benevolent, diplomatic, and disciplined force in international politics? Wegner presents a rich breadth of empirical material to unravel peacekeeping's one-dimensional persona, demonstrating its investment in gendered, racialized, and imperial violence. Militarism is not only the work of war and military institutions, she brilliantly shows, but is also embedded within dominant national and indeed, global, desires about what peace "is." Wegner offers us a courageous path to end our love affair with martial peace and its endless legitimization of war.-- "Colleen Bell, University of Saskatchewan"

Through a nuanced and wide-ranging discourse analysis, Nicole Wegner derives the concept of "martial peace", produced and reproduced in/through the mythology of peacekeeping. In turn, martial peace performs a key role in legitimising militarisation and war. With resonance far beyond the case of Canada, which is the focus of Wegner's meticulous analysis here, critical engagement with how peace is martialled to justify violence is a necessary precursor to the imagining of anti-militarist and anti-oppressive futures.-- "Laura Shepherd, University of Sydney"

Wegner's forensic analysis of the 'peacekeeping myth' in Canadian national imaginary offers the reader an important new concept in 'martial peace', which reveals how military violence is made possible both abroad and at 'home' on (stolen) Indigenous land in Canada. In her conclusion Wegner - calling on the insights of Indigenous and decolonial thinkers before her - dares us to imagine a radical future that is anti-militarist and Indigenous-led.-- "Julia Welland, University of Warwick"