The Market of Violence: From Monopoly to Competition. A Scientific Program

Since the bipolar system ended, some organized groups such as mafias, terrorist networks and private military companies were extremely successful. They appeared to be able to decide over the ditribution of (material and symbolic) resources among competing actors. Some authors interpreted such evolution as a return to a pre-political situation of war of all against all, talking about «failed states», «rogue states» and «neo-medievalism». To such hypothesis this essay counters a different one: present violence is more and more civil, not intended as civil war, but as a violence produced by actors belonging to civil society, i.e. the private or economic sphere. It is a less and less political violence, as it is not anylonger managed by public or political actors. To state it differently, the Berlin wall fall and the related opening of huge new markets has shown that politics drew back letting the economy self-regulate itself. In other words still, the privatization of politics - well known to western democracies, besides many authoritarian regimes of developing countries - has finally determined a privatization of the use of force.

Fabio Armao, Il mercato della violenza: dal monopolio alla libera concorrenza. Un programma scientifico in "TEORIA POLITICA" 2/2006, pp , DOI: