The "Paris IAS Ideas" online talk series features short and stimulating presentations from fellows of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, marking the beginning of 1-month writing residencies.

Online and in English only.
Free registration but required.
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Presentation

What if the state was no longer the sole controller of violence? This research project proposes to rethink the sociology of violence and conflict in the age of globalization and technology. Through the lens of the military and cyberweapons industries in Israel since the 1990s, it explores how wars create markets... and how these markets in turn influence war.

Far from the classic vision of Max Weber or Norbert Elias, the study shows that violence can be decentralized and transformed into a commodity. It analyzes how state support—technology transfers, R&D funding, flexible export licenses—has shaped a dynamic military technology industry. And how this industry, in turn, is redefining states' strategies and motivations in warfare.

This research project develops a macro-sociology of violence that challenges this state centralization, which is taken for granted, and describes more precisely the relationship between violence and the state and, by extension, the relationship between the state and the market, when violence is decentralized and transformed into a commodity. It draws on the case of military-industrial relations in Israel.