Gentleman Bureaucrat Masculinity: Liberal Militarism and the Civil Service (SE4 EP3)

Warrior Nation

When it comes to critiquing and analysing how Government works to support the military, the focus is always on politicians and the lobbying work that seeks to influence them. But what about the people in Whitehall who oil the political machine? Civil servants out-live the ministers, cabinets and governments they work for, and have more influence than we fully understand. If the overall culture within the civil service is pro-military, then it stands to reason that the mechanics of government will naturally support the armed forces.
In this episode we speak with Hannah Wright, a scholar who has looked in great detail at how militarism and militarist assumptions infuse and shape security and foreign policy. Hannah is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London but also worked as an advisor for Saferworld, PAX and other peace-focused NGOs. Her PHD examined the civil service through the lenses of coloniality and feminism.
You can discover Hannah's work on the Queen Mary website.
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Music by Esion Noise.

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