Guerra y liberalismo

Abstract

The article deals with the complex relations between war and liberalism. It proposes a definition of liberal war through the establishment of an indivisible bond between the way of government and the way of war. It asserts that, to deploy itself, liberal government needs free individuals, capable of self-government. As that particular subjectivity is not natural, it has to be constructed. Thus, the exercise of liberalism´s power of death it is not confined solely to negative tasks. It fulfills a positive and productive function: the construction of subjectivities. This means that violent practices or the exercise of the right to death, do not disappear with liberal government. Instead, they transform themselves. In consequence, liberal wars present particular characteristics, different from those that used to characterize wars during the Westphalian system. These particularities appear in their objects, objectives and mechanisms, as well as in their specific spatiality and their enemy determination.