Abstract

How can the relative inability of social theory to shed light on the horrors of the late twentieth century be reconciled with the fact that both history and social science earlier devoted themselves to arriving at an understanding of war and violence in the modern world? An answer is provided in five steps. First, the disciplinary evolution of the social science disciplines tends to make them oblivious of important parts of their own heritage and opens up a chasm between the social and the historical sciences. Second, the contribution of military experiences to the formation of the policy orientation of modern social sciences renders them less rather than more capable of reflecting upon war as a societal and historical phenomenon. Third, rational choice theory and historical sociology are relatively unable to arrive at an understanding of the cultural constitution of modernity and share a naturalistic conception of war and violence. Fourth, at least five features of war in the late twentieth century transcend the experiences of modernity. Fifth, in order to grasp these features conceptually, social theory has to acknowledge different varieties of modernity seriously, to elaborate a historical phenomenology of the experiences of war and violence, and to arrive at an actionbased explanation of wars in their societal and historical context.