Cramer, Christopher. Violence in Developing Countries: War, Memory, and Progress. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007.

Christopher Cramer‘s Violence in Developing Countries attempts to answer one of the central questions of peace and conflict studies: is it possible to make sense of war? The book aims to prove that it is indeed possible and to decide how making sense of war can help us to mitigate its affects. On this count the book is based on a rather straightforward reformulation of theories of conflict resolution and transformation in the tradition of Johan Galtung and Louis Kriesberg, and does not innovate much in terms of its understanding of the nature of violent conflict.[1] Where it does diverge creatively, however, is in its critique of development as a technique of peacebuilding. Whilst the mainstream literature on peace and conflict studies tends to affirm development — in particular economic growth — as a tool for transforming violent conflict and eliminating the ‗structural violence‘ that prompts it[2], Cramer greets this approach with refreshing skepticism. He takes as his central foil the claim that war is ―development in reverse‖ (p. 9) – and therefore, that to develop a society is to reverse the effects of war. Cramer strives to demystify the lure of development through a series of historical examples that illustrate the centrality of violent conflict to the development of the industrialized liberal democracies (pp. 43, 179-81, 183-87). In so doing, he explodes several myths surrounding violence in developing countries, such as the idea that poverty (126), relative inequality (p. 108), ethnic factors (p. 107), or indeed modern notions such as globalization have given rise to new kinds of warfare, which are often seen as ‗congenital disorders‘ and blemishes upon the liberal visage. (p. 94)

From the converse perspective, Cramer develops an argument that war is not, in fact, development in reverse, but rather a necessary stimulant of development. One of his most interesting arguments here is that the normative value or moral purposes of war are not diminished in the modern day (p. 171); rather, as a result of modern liberalism, the material values and moral significance of daily life over which many modern conflicts seem to arise are moral priorities and are deeply embedded within our political institutions. Of particular value here are his examples of war finance as a key plank in the development of state structures (pp. 189-91) and his discussion of the arms trade in developing countries, such as Angola, with reference to this process (chapter one). However, although Cramer argues in a convincing, nuanced and comprehensive way that liberal economic development can cause war, he does not sufficiently demonstrate that it necessarily leads to violence. This leaves his thesis vulnerable to the argument that most socio-economic or socio-political processes, including liberal ones, can support either violence or peace, depending on their context and the nature in which they unfold.[3]

The concluding sections of the book does pose a second substantive question of great importance: if development can be viewed as a good in itself, is it worth the violence that it possibly engenders? The greatest disappointment of the book, in fact, is Cramer‘s failure to address this question directly. Rather than articulating his invective against liberal development theories explicitly, Cramer appears to assume that his reader agrees with his stance, and interprets the nature and structure of the work as subversive in itself, which robs the argument of much of its power. It is perhaps unfair to criticize an author for what he did not write but given the careful and potent arguments made in this book, the reader cannot be blamed for expecting more in the way of prescription.

Cramer makes a convincing argument against the form of development that he perceives to create violence but fails to provide a constructive alternative. For example, what kind of development, if not the liberal-capitalist variety, could avoid the trap of escalating violence? Or, alternatively, if violence is necessary to progress (p. 47), how exactly can (and should) policymakers ―twist the dynamics of accumulation to more constructive ends‖? What, specifically, would he propose to replace the ―post-conflict makeover fantasy‖ (p. 261) that inheres within most liberal approaches to peace-building? Cramer‘s rather unoriginal suggestions of regulating violence by means of the United Nations and altering economic policies leave much to be desired, and the author‘s discomfort in making concrete suggestions in the area of policy-making, despite the fact that he hinges the solution of the problem upon this. Indeed it is more a confirmation of a book‘s value than of its shortcomings to suggest that more could have been done with the material at hand, which is certainly the case here. Perhaps the book‘s greatest strength is that it can provide a number of theoretical springboards for those who are interested in formulating new approaches to this persistent challenge.

Audra Mitchell is a PhD candidate in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen‘s University, Belfast.