
































Microsoft Word - Alexander review of Frazer


[Expositions 15.1 (2021) 69–76]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 

Frazer, Elizabeth, and Kimberly Hutchings. Violence and Political Theory. Cambridge, UK: 
Polity Press, 2020. 224 pages. $22.95 (paper). ISBN: 978–1–509–53672–6. 
 

 

Contemporary political theorist Sheldon Wolin wrote of political theory that it is “a sum of 

judgments, shaped by the theorist’s judgment of what matters, and embodying a series of 

discriminations about where one province begins and another leaves off.”1 This description of what 

political theory entails is especially apt for a book such as Violence and Political Theory, which in 

an economical fashion seeks to selectively survey, taxonomize, and evaluate the treatment of 

violence and politics across centuries of political thought. Undaunted by this challenge, authors 

Frazer and Hutchings clarify from the outset that this undertaking is not meant to be exhaustive, 

and that even the treatment of a given thinker might “not always do justice to the broader political 

theory” (7) on offer. The justice to be done, instead, pertains to the subject matter at hand: the 

relationship between violence and politics, and the variegated theoretical treatment thereof. To this 

end, Frazer and Hutchings have offered us, if not a mosaic, then at least a bricolage. 

From Niccolò Machiavelli to Jacques Derrida to Elaine Scarry, the twenty-six thinkers analyzed 

are creatively organized and juxtaposed. Apart from Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, all early 

modern theorists, the thinkers treated in this compendium made their mark in either the 19th or 20th 

Centuries. Grouped in eight chapters with capacious yet concise titles such as “Politics and 

Revolutionary Violence,” “Politics and State Violence,” and “Politics and the Transformation of 

Man,” the synopsized thinkers and their ideas are situated in fruitful dialogue with each other, 

circumscribed by edifying introductory and concluding sections. Beyond mere curation, the 

authors engage critically with the arguments proffered in the relevant texts with an eye towards 

expounding their own political theory of violence. Their own theorizing, in turn, flows from 

examining how the selected thinkers produce and justify the conceptual distinctions made between 

violence and politics.  

Frazer’s and Hutchings’s examination shows how drawing conceptual boundaries between 

violence and politics inevitably runs into difficulty. The authors claim that “such settlements are 

inherently unstable and full of tensions” (1). They argue further that these tensions give rise to 

taxonomical evasions by the theorists in question whenever they attempt to settle these conceptual 

questions. From their surveying of the literature, it “seems that the framing of violence in political 

theory necessarily involves slippage between violence and something else” (6). Frazer and 



Review of Violence and Political Theory  70 

Hutchings argue that in these “slippages,” thinkers move from attending to actual practices of 

violence and the conditions that give rise to them (that is, the politics of violence), to the 

justificatory structures that divert attention elsewhere. It is to these evasions, and what our authors 

claim they reveal, that we now turn. 

In the taxonomy crafted by Frazer and Hutchings, distinct legitimation structures underpin the 

theoretical discourses on violence and politics. These justificatory structures differ depending on 

the thinker, but there are two predominant categories in which these diverse theoretical approaches 

can be thoughtfully positioned and juxtaposed. One category of justificatory evasions involves 

instrumental or consequentialist approaches. In these, violence is justified as the means to some 

political end or set of ends. Instead of focusing on the violence itself, attention shifts to the putative 

ends that these theorists argue justify the violence. For some theorists, these ends relate to 

overthrowing a tyrannical or colonizing state; to others, it is the very order and stability of the state 

that requires violence. The second predominate category focuses on questioning when and whether 

violence is of a virtuous or vicious character (and is thereby justifiable or not). Once again, the 

normative function is to divert attention from actual violence to the virtue or vice that either 

justifies or condemns it. These are certainly helpful analytical categories, and the book is replete 

with salient examples and distinctions drawn within them. The structural integrity of their 

taxonomy becomes suspect, however, as Frazer and Hutchings further complicate their own 

organizational schema.  

The authors note that, while many evasive strategies fall into the categories of consequentialist 

or virtue justifications, other strategies do not seem to fit neatly into either class. For example, 

when instrumental reasoning fails due to the uncertainty inherent in predicting outcomes, some 

theorists turn to construing violence as inextricable from or necessary to politics. On the other 

hand, there are theorists who employ strategies to depoliticize violence. Frazer and Hutchings 

further argue that justificatory strategies are “often heavily dependent on various kinds of 

analogical and metaphorical reasoning and on the affective work of aesthetic categories,” 

especially involving “tropes of war and gender” (5–6). Moreover, not only do these “slippages 

between accounts of political violence and discourses on war and gender do a great deal of 

legitimating work, they are also key to political theorists’ failure to engage fully with conditions 

and practices of violence” (6). It is unclear, however, if or how the “key” of gender and war tropes 

unlocks each theoretical failure. Indeed, the authors themselves indicate that these justificatory 



71  Alexander 

strategies, this gendering of language, and this aestheticization of violence often overlap. This 

initial lack of clarity is never subsequently resolved, and it remains a question how these tropes 

function distinctly from the manifold other theoretical patterns and tendencies used to evade 

confrontation with the reality of violence. What is much clearer in Frazer’s and Hutchings’s 

synoptic treatment is how the causes, effects, and relations of political violence have been 

consistently (but distinctly) underdeveloped within political theory. In this respect, their critique 

is both revelatory and useful in rethinking how we understand political violence.  

At a meta-level, Violence and Political Theory allows its readers to consider how political 

violence is theorized across a spectrum of political thought. In isolating and categorizing these 

concerns, the authors give the reader a sense of the patterns of evasion that have been developed 

and the omissions that recur. Along the way, Frazer and Hutchings also offer their readers sharp 

revelations and adept distillations that do not necessarily pertain to justificatory strategies alone. 

Their appraisal of Hannah Arendt’s theoretical offerings on violence provides a representative 

example. In what follows, Frazer and Hutching elucidate how violence is situated within Arendtian 

categories: 

 

Violence itself, in the context of politics, is ruled by means-end reasoning. Political 

actors assume that, like the making of an object, the use of certain tools will bring 

about a particular outcome. The problem with violence, in contrast to that with 

fabrication, is that the end to which violence is directed is always in danger of being 

overwhelmed by the means it justifies. All human action, including political action, 

is unpredictable, but to this unpredictability violence brings a significant additional 

element of arbitrariness. It might “pay,” but it pays indiscriminately. The most 

probable change it will bring about is a change to a more violent world. To the 

extent that the world becomes more violent, the possibilities for politics are reduced 

and corrupted. (77–78)  

 

Here, Frazer and Hutchings place Arendt’s insights into violence in the context of her broader 

political theory. In addition to juxtaposing Arendt’s understanding of violence against her 

conception of power and action, which for Arendt are the concepts par excellence for 

understanding “the political,” the authors also compare violence to fabrication. This begins to lay 



Review of Violence and Political Theory  72 

the groundwork for their subsequent claim in the chapter that, for Arendt, “the category of violence 

hovers somewhere between the categories of work and action” (81). For scholars and students of 

Arendt’s political theory, this is a valuable intervention, as it puts into conversation Arendtian 

terms and categories from both On Violence and The Human Condition. If Arendt’s category of 

work applies to fabrication, where with an image in our minds we can then make the world, and 

action is the spontaneous, generative activity that distinguishes human beings from each other and 

shapes the stories that retrospectively define them, violence “hovers” yet doesn’t land on either 

conceptual territory. Violence might well seduce us into thinking we can (re)make the world with 

it, as with fabrication, or become memorialized heroically through it, as with political action. 

Consequently, violence often destroys the very ends it was intended to serve, brought about by a 

blurring of conceptual lines.  

The above analysis is but one of many such examples that Frazer and Hutchings provide readers 

throughout the book. It is in their erudite ability to distill and comparatively analyze complex 

political theories that permits, for instance, a treatment of Marx and Engels spanning fewer than 

four pages to be worthwhile. This lucidity and insight, however, is interrupted at times by less 

effective offerings. Frazer’s and Hutchings’s analytical distillations occasionally run into problems 

when coupled with arguments made on behalf of their own theory of political violence. This is 

most often the case regarding the asserted “key” of analyzing how gender and war tropes function 

affectively and persuasively. For example, the authors write about John Locke that: “the exemplary 

kind of violence at the heart of Locke’s justificatory political philosophy is that of the marauder, 

of the beast who threatens life in the wilderness, and of the thieves and burglars who threaten 

security and property. The threat coming from the tyrant is construed as analogous to the threat 

that emanates from these categories” (34). This is an astute observation, and well and good as far 

as it goes. Corresponding observations about George Sorel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone 

de Beauvoir are subsequently made in short succession, culminating in the following argument 

that binds them all together:  

 

The problems and paradoxes involved in arguments that justify violence, whether 

in relation to outcomes, rights, necessity, or virtue, are addressed through the 

thinkers’ uses of rhetorical strategies and aesthetic categories so as to secure their 

conceptual and normative ground. We know that tyrannical violence is beastly, and 



73  Alexander 

parliamentary politics dishonest; hence revolutionary violence, as the opposite to 

these qualities, must be normatively preferable. We know that proletarian violence 

is masculine and socialist political parties are effeminate; so we already know 

which form of action is better. (36)  

 

The above terms are claimed by Frazer and Hutchings to be intrinsically gendered and operating 

affectively as a form of metaphorical reasoning; that is, in lieu of argument, the gendered 

terminology itself functions rhetorically as a form of persuasion. And yet, there are no ensuing 

reasons proffered to support these claims; rather, the use of “we know” is doing the analytical 

work. Even assuming that “we know” that proletarian violence is gendered as masculine and 

socialist political parties as effeminate (and that the masculine is therefore favored), in what way 

does this relate to “beastly” tyranny and “dishonest” politics? Might not “beastly” be construed as 

masculine, and therefore favored? Frazer and Hutchings subsequently invoke mythic metaphors 

of heroically killing dragons as part of the aestheticized, problematic metaphorical language at 

work. Is it “killing the beast,” then, that is masculine and therefore favored? Is this functioning 

rhetorically as both a war trope and a gender trope, and if so, is there more affective work done by 

the gender or war metaphor? Is dishonesty inherently gendered as feminine? What are the claims 

here, precisely? 

Other examples speak less to the impediment of analytical vagueness than to inconsistency. For 

instance, when the authors analyze the normative appeal to “sacrifice,” this virtue is understood in 

one context as feminine, as with Gandhi (140), but when analyzing Carl Schmitt, sacrifice is 

construed as the heroic, masculine virtue that “feminised” liberals lack (66). Further, while Gandhi 

does indeed present sacrifice as a virtue, Schmitt does not even use this term, let alone in an 

explicitly gendered manner; neither does Schmitt refer to gender in other contexts. Rather, the 

authors inscribe into his theory the principle of sacrifice based upon the “friend-enemy distinction” 

he develops, and then construe this principle as related to gender. In these and other such instances, 

it seems to be the authors themselves who reify gender and fix the meaning of disparately used (or 

merely implied) terms for their own rhetorical and persuasive purposes.  

It is certainly true and important to note that language often operates to instantiate, affirm, and 

reinforce patriarchal (and other oppressive) structures of power. It is also undoubtedly the case 

that many of the thinkers under examination, and certainly the times in which they wrote, were 



Review of Violence and Political Theory  74 

imbued with patriarchal biases. However, this does not mean, necessarily, that the language used 

in the expounding of a given political theory functions chiefly (if at all) by way of taking advantage 

of these gendered biases. This claim would have to be demonstrated, rather than extrapolated. 

Instead, support for this through line of analysis is given short shrift. Had the authors posited a 

narrower claim and highlighted as noteworthy the inclusion of gender and war tropes within the 

plethora of justificatory rhetorical moves made, this would have enriched rather than detracted 

from the analysis. It is worth noting a few other claims by the authors that would have been better 

suited to the editorial chopping block; moreover, their inclusion might also explain a 

correspondingly conspicuous omission. 

Frazer and Hutchings assert that, in their view, “feminist reflections on political violence, 

through debates on pacifism and war, push to its limits the political theory repertoire for thinking 

about the relation between politics and violence” (175). One might hope that this strong assertion 

would be accompanied by equally strong arguments to support it. Instead, it is appended with yet 

a further bold, revealing claim. The authors state that, “Even more radical than Marxist, anarchist, 

and anticolonial thinkers, feminists make clear how predominant justifications of violence depend 

on various forms of drawing the line—between means and ends, violence and non-violence, or 

good and bad violence—that are neither empirically nor analytically sustainable” (175). Besides 

neglecting to clarify or support the vague assertion that feminist thinkers are “even more radical” 

than Marxist, anarchist, and anticolonial thinkers, the declaration itself bizarrely writes out of 

existence the possibility for and reality of Marxist feminism, anarchist feminism, and anticolonial 

feminism. It is perhaps this same neglect that explains a notable exclusion from the book, an 

absence that itself seems constitutive. 

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek, equal parts Slovenian and Hegelian, enjoys joke-telling as a path into 

understanding Hegel’s philosophical offerings. One joke he especially enjoys telling is meant to 

help explain the Hegelian concept of determinate negation. The joke involves a customer who 

orders coffee without cream, only for the waiter to respond, “Sorry, but we have run out of cream. 

Can I bring you coffee without milk?”2 Žižek explains that, in “both cases, the customer gets coffee 

alone, but this One-coffee is each time accompanied by a different negation, first coffee-with-no-

cream, then coffee-with-no-milk.”3 Materially, there is no difference between the coffee without 

milk and the coffee without cream, but symbolically there is indeed a difference: two distinct 

absences (“without milk” versus “without cream”) create two different coffees that exist on the 



75  Alexander 

ideational plane of desire and meaning. Different negative reference points are constitutive of 

different realities. One “without” is distinct from another “without,” resulting in a meaningful 

difference (quite literally, a difference in the realm of meaning). In the case of Violence and 

Political Theory, the absence that seems constitutive relates to the (under)theorizing of race, racial 

violence, and white supremacy. 

According to the authors, their book is meant to evaluate thinkers who “exemplify certain 

positions on the question of violence and politics in the history of political thought,” and also 

“continue to provide resources for thinking about the relations between violence and politics in the 

contemporary world” (7). Of the twenty-six thinkers included in Violence and Political Theory, 

two are people of color: Frantz Fanon and Mohandas Gandhi are both included in the chapter on 

“Violence and the Transformation of Man.” Gandhi likely needs no introduction. Frantz Fanon, 

the existentialist, Pan-Africanist, and revolutionary, is renowned for his Hegelian and 

psychoanalytic analysis of white supremacy under settler colonialism. As mentioned earlier in this 

review, Gandhi’s treatment of violence and politics is analyzed by the authors through the lens of 

how his virtues of nonviolence are gendered. The authors approach and frame Fanon’s theorizing 

similarly. Frazer and Hutchings note that Fanon “exposes how gendering and racializing categories 

come together in the colonial mindset” (145). The authors go on to detail how gendering categories 

come together for Fanon. They do not, however, reveal, explore, or explain how racializing 

categories function in Fanon’s theorizing. We do not learn about how, in Black Skins, White Masks, 

Fanon describes colonization as involving a racialized process he names epidermalization.4 We do 

not learn that the revolutionary violence that Fanon describes as psychologically cleansing relates 

to the internalized oppression and inferiority complex created by the racialization process integral 

to settler colonialism.5 Instead, we learn that, “Wretched of the Earth tells us that colonialism must 

be violently fought because it emasculates men, and ‘Algeria Unveiled’ tells us that it must be 

violently fought because it violates women” (148–149). In this foregrounding, the white 

supremacy of settler colonialism recedes from view. This is not the only occasion in the book in 

which this takes places.  

The authors note in their final chapter that “the rhetoric through which theorists attempt to make 

their justificatory arguments persuasive locks us into a way of imagining the world order that 

reproduces rather than challenges familiar hierarchies of gender, race and class” (189). The Black 

Marxist feminism that the authors not only ignore, but that they imply would combine mutually 



Review of Violence and Political Theory  76 

exclusive categories (of feminism and Marxism), is but one theoretical approach that seeks to 

imagine the world anew, in part by understanding gender, race, and class as intersections that must 

be theorized together. From Arendt we learn that violence is mute. It does not speak, it silences.6 

The exclusion of race, white supremacy, and especially black radical feminists from a text suffused 

with feminist analysis—this too is a kind of silencing, a making mute. This too, might be theorized 

as a kind of violence. 

 
ALEXIOS ALEXANDER 
EASTERN UNIVERSITY 

 

 

Notes 

1. Sheldon S. Wolin, “Political Theory as a Vocation,” The American Political Science 

Review 63.4 (1969): 1076. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1955072  

2. Slavoj Žižek, Žižek’s Jokes (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?) (Cambridge, 

MA: The MIT Press, 2014), 47. 

3. Ibid. 

4. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Charles Lam Markmann (London: 

Pluto, 2008), 4. 

5. Ibid., 9 and passim. 

6. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1959), 25.  


