Belligerent Capital and Bare Agents: Dominance and Domination before, during, and after War

This article develops two new concepts—“belligerent capital” and “bare agents”—and deploys them to analyze battles to define capital values before, during, and after state-driven conflict. Taking the former Yugoslavia as a case study, the analysis shows how belligerent capital assigns extra and exclusive value to positions and position-takings invested in bellicose state behavior. This creates specific forms of dominance and domination that have ratchet effects: Belligerent capital clings to the habitus of its holders and ties capital values to warfare and its friend/enemy distinctions. The concept of bare agents refers to the total devaluation of capital and the risk of social and physical death. Belligerent capital produces bare agents, but this capital itself can suffer total depreciation when postconflict justice redesignates it as part of a criminal enterprise. This dynamic can shape opposition to postconflict justice efforts and linked processes of peace, security, and rule-of-law building.