Problematising war: Towards a reconstructive critique of war as a problem of deviance

Abstract This article redirects extant critiques of the modern problem war at this problem's underlying logic deviance. According to logic, constitutes a kind international conduct that contravenes behavioural norms and can be corrected through diagnostic didactic means. Thereby, is rendered into falling within scope human agency. However, agency rests on reproduces logic's constitutive blind spots. Therefore, it seems imperative develop ways problematising otherwise. The provides two starting points for (critical) IR scholarship seeking undertake such project. Firstly, combines Foucaultian tools, concept problematisation method genealogy, direct critique logics our evaluative – analytical, ethical, political judgements. Secondly, uses these tools trace contingent emergence deviance in crucial example wider genealogy war: Carnegie Endowment's commission inquiry Balkan Wars 1912 1913. Based original archival research, I highlight different elements inquiry's its frames, assumptions, knowing, subjects knowledge make them available reconstruction.