Lecture 'Seeing Like an Extremist State' by Jonathan Maynard

'Seeing Like an Extremist State: The Subjectivity of Extremist Governments' by Jonathan Maynard.

This is a recording from the Extremism and Subjectivity workshop in Amsterdam, 4-5 April 2024. It is part of a series of workshops facilitated by the Extreme Beliefs: The Epistemology and Ethics of Fundamentalism project at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (Grant Agreement No. 851613).
https://extremebeliefs.com/

Organizers: Chris Ranalli, Quassim Cassam, Rik Peels, and Anna Haase.

ABSTRACT Research on extremism has overwhelmingly focused on ‘non-state actors’: terrorist organisations, armed groups, and radical social movements or political parties. Far less attention has been given to extremist states - i.e. governments and their associated agencies – and the distinct character of extremism when manifested at the state level. I have argued elsewhere (Leader Maynard [forthcoming]) that this is a mistake, since extremists can clearly come to hold state office, and since extremist behaviour by states is generally far more consequential and harmful than that of non-state actors. In this paper, I focus more squarely on the character of extremist state subjectivity. Much social science does not give great attention to the subjective character of individual states or governments - utilising rational choice analysis to analyse how states, regardless of their distinctive individual characteristics, may be pressured by common situational incentives and needs in ways that explain important patterns of behaviour. This is an important analytical approach but, in reality, it is obvious that states are not all alike, and that their subjective characteristics - both the particular perspectives of their dominant political groups but also the institutions and norms that constitute their broader political system and culture – can make a difference. Few scholars dispute this. As such, if we must learn, as James C. Scott (1998) famously argued, to “see like a state,” we should also ask what it is like to see like an extremist state.

This paper therefore seeks to do three things. First, I offer some brief methodological reflections on how we might study the subjective character of extremist states by triangulating (i) analysis of political discourse, (ii) measures of political attitudes and expectations; (iii) theoretical postulation of internal norms and institutional practices. Second, I make an argument about the dominant recurring characteristics of extremist state subjectivity. I argue, in particular, that a dominant focus in much past scholarship on state extremism as a form of revolutionary utopianism that seeks to restructure whole societies is mistaken. Based on specialist scholarship on multiple cases of extremist states across history, I argue that the foundations of state extremism lie in the politics of (in)security, and the way extremist narratives of threat, war and antagonistic polarization can be used to expand state practices of violence and harm. Finally, I offer some reflections connecting this analysis of extremist state subjectivity to the study of extremism and subjectivity more broadly. There are important differences between state and non-state extremism. But I argue that a shift in analysis in recent work on extremism towards a greater emphasis of conspiracy theories and identity polarization, and away from a focus on purportedly radical values and entrenched hatreds, has been productive in the study of both state and non-state extremism, and offers ways of connecting the analysis of extremism amongst different kinds of social actor.


Information about the speaker:
Jonathan Leader Maynard is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London and a Parliamentary Academic Fellow advising the International Affairs Unit of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the role of ideology in world politics, especially in mass atrocities, armed conflict, and political extremism. His first book, Ideology and Mass Killing: The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides and Deadly Atrocities was published by Oxford University Press in 2022, and he also co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Ideology and International Relations (Routledge, 2022). He has published in leading scholarly journals including the Journal of Peace Research, Ethics, the British Journal of Political Science, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Genocide Studies and Prevention, as well appearing in news media including the BBC, CBC, The Independent and The New Statesman.