racial politics of police warfare

Jasbinder S. Nijjar is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Social and Political Sciences Department at Brunel University of London.

'Nijjar presents a forensic critique of policing through the interlocking lenses of institutional racism, militarisation, war and state control. Unflinching in its analysis, the book traces the complicated historical roots and evolving contours of British policing, revealing it as a biopolitical system engineered to enforce a racialised and militarised social order. For Nijjar, policing is a biopolitical system that curates and rationalises the targeted regulation and dehumanisation of racial subjects. The book’s dual emphasis on the militarisation of race and the racialisation of war makes an urgent contribution to how we understand a core, violent aspect of racialised control – ‘the racial politics of police warfare’ – and its systematic embeddedness within policing frameworks, ideologically built and endorsed by the state. The depressing applicability of Nijjar’s analysis to multiple global contexts underscores its relevance and potential impact. The significance for anti-racist forms of resistance is clear; we need to practically challenge and transform policing’s everyday ways of normalising war power and our increasingly unjust social order. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to confront the violent realities of state racism and imagine anti-racist and humane alternatives.'– Sarita Malik, Brunel University of London

• Introduction: the violence of denialPart 1: The modus operandi of modern police1 Policing and the long war on race2 Race-war-police nexusPart 2: The biopolitics of anti-gang and counter-terrorism policing3 ‘Total policing’ racial threat4 ‘Total policing’ racial abnormality5 ‘Total policing’ racial othernessConclusion: resisting racial police warfare