On Thursday, May 24, 2012, at 7:00 p.m. Prof. Mark Neocleous of Brunel University in Uxbridge, U.K., will speak at the University of Washington-Tacoma on "Security as Pacification."[1]  --  This program is free and open to the public and is part of the Politics, Economics and Philosophy/Urban Studies Seminar Series....

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WHAT: Security as Pacification -- a lecture
WHO: Mark Neocleous, Professor of the Critique of Political Economy and Head of Politics and History at Brunel University, Uxbridge, United Kingdom
WHEN: Thursday, May 24, 2012 -- 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Carwein Auditorium, University of Washington-Tacoma

What happens if we think of the politics of security as a process of pacification?  Pacification is a term that has fallen out of use in recent years, having been closely associated with American practices during the U.S.-Vietnam war.   The paper first suggests that pacification in fact has a much longer history, one which links accumulation in the colonies with the rise of capitalism and the state in the West.   Read in this way, pacification can be seen as a form of police power, securing the insecurity of capitalist order, and, relatedly, being intimately connected with the politics of security and the (trans)formation of the state.  This attempt to think of security as pacification, and thus to turn pacification into a category of critical theory, also helps us make sense of the permanent ‘wars on . . .’ being declared by state:  the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on terror.

Mark Neocleous joined Brunel University in the Department of Government in 1994.  Since then he has published numerous books and articles.  His most recent work has been directed towards the development of a critique of security, taking his earlier work on the state, the fabrication of order, and the political mobilization of fear in a new direction.  His current project is a work of counter-strategic thinking, being developed through a critical exploration of war and peace and a revitalization of the category ‘pacification’.  His work has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, French, Italian, and German.   Mark is on the editorial collective of the journal Radical Philosophy, and is a member of the editorial collective of Red Quill Books.

Contact: Rob Crawford, 253-692-4460 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.