In spite of a boom in war studies in a range of disciplines, war remains marginal to sociology. Moreover, the dominant tone in war studies is a Western-centred criticism of militarization that tends to neglect weaponized colonialism and imperial irredentism in other parts of the world. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and hybrid war with other European countries is such a case; another is China’s growing military hybrid warfare against neighbouring countries in East Asia. To correct this lacuna, this monograph gathers scholars working on Eastern Europe and East Asia. By placing these two regions – often treated as peripheral to the core of interest of Western sociology – into a single analytical frame, this collective volume contributes to develop a comparative sociology of the war–society nexus attentive to imperial formations, contested sovereignties and everyday experiences of insecurity. This introduction assesses how war matters to sociology and provides an overview of this monograph’s contribution.
Jobin et al. (Sun,) studied this question.