Madness in International Relations provides an important and innovative account of the role of psychology and psychiatry in global politics, showing how mental health governance has become a means of securing various populations, often with questionable effects.
Through the analysis of three key case studies Howell illustrates how such therapeutic interventions can at times be coercive and sovereign, at other times disciplinary, and at still other times benevolent, though not benign. In each case a ‘diagnostic competition’ is traced, that is, a contestation over how best to diagnose and treat the population in question. The book examines the populations of Guantánamo Bay, post-conflict societies and western militaries, identifying how these diagnostic competitions ultimately rest on shared assumptions about the value of psychology and psychiatry in managing global security, about the value of achieving security through mental health governance, and ultimately about the medicalization of security.
This work will be of great interest to all scholars of International relations, critical theory and security studies.
Author(s): Alison Howell
Series: Interventions
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 201
Tags: Psychology, Security, Global Governance, Mental Health
Cover
......Page 1
Madness in International Relations Psychology, security, and the global governance of mental health
......Page 6
Copyright
......Page 7
Contents......Page 10
Preface and acknowledgements
......Page 12
1. Madness in International Relations: An introduction
......Page 16
The psy disciplines in IR......Page 18
Studying madness in IR: Notes on method......Page 28
Chapter outline: Putting it into order......Page 33
2. Security, order, control: From anti-politics to ethico-politics
......Page 38
Genealogies of security: The politics of effects......Page 39
The politics of ordering practices......Page 45
Madness, trauma, and IR......Page 50
From political psychology to the politics of psy......Page 52
Approaching madness......Page 54
Psychiatry and empire......Page 65
Sovereignty, discipline, governance......Page 68
Approaching the psy disciplines in IR......Page 73
4. Victims or madmen? Suicide and the diagnostic competition over detainees at Guantánamo Bay......Page 79
The military diagnosis: The detainees as madmen......Page 81
The humanitarian diagnosis: Psychologically impaired victims......Page 90
The sovereign uses of the psy disciplines in IR......Page 98
5. The diagnostic competition over post-confl ict populations: Merging the psychosocial and mental health models
......Page 103
The psychologization of the security-development nexus......Page 105
The diagnostic competition: Psychosocial versus mental health paradigms......Page 115
The politics of PTSD......Page 119
The politics of psy interventions in post-confl ict situations......Page 122
6. Ordering soldiers: Contesting therapeutic practices in the Canadian military
......Page 128
The diagnostic competition over soldiers’ psyches......Page 130
Governing the minds of Canadian soldiers......Page 137
From disorder to injury: Soldiers as deserving of care......Page 148
Medicalizing trauma and the politics of PTSD in the Canadian forces......Page 151
7. Conclusion: The global politics of governing mental health
......Page 158
Sovereignty, discipline, governance, and psy in IR......Page 159
Psy interventions: Assessing effects......Page 161
‘Give it to me’: Psy and intelligibility in global politics......Page 165
The medicalization and psychologization of security......Page 166
Security and order: Against the will to closure......Page 167
Notes......Page 170
Bibliography......Page 174
Index......Page 194
