Making sense of militarism through antimilitarists’ resistance strategies

ABSTRACT This review article examines Chris Rossdale’s Resisting Militarism: Direct Action and the Politics of Subversion, bringing its critical analysis of British antimilitarism into conversation with my doctoral project on the socio-legal analysis of conscientious objection in Turkey, the only country that has not recognized the right to conscientious objection among the members of the Council of Europe. It demonstrates how considering the various facets of militarism within different geographical contexts could help us to better understand the diverse resistance strategies. The article draws on Rossdale’s findings of antimilitarism in the UK and the semi-structured interviews that I conducted with 18 conscientious objectors in Turkey in June–July 2016 using snowballing sampling. It argues that militarism does not only shape society, but also interact with its social, cultural, economic, political elements. As a result, individuals coming from diverse social settings encounter militarization in diverse ways, which, in effect, has implications on how anti-militarists resist militarism.