Critical Sociology 2016, Vol. 42(7-8) 1163–1177 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0896920515582091 crs.sagepub.com From Complicit Citizens to Potential Prey: State Imaginaries and Subjectivities in US War Resistance Emily Brissette Bridgewater State University, USA Abstract The movements against the Vietnam and Iraq wars gave rise to analogous resistance efforts, in the form of draft resistance and counter-recruitment, respectively. Despite their many similarities, the draft resistance and counter-recruitment movements emerged in distinct historical eras marked by very different ‘state imaginaries’ or assumptions about the nature of the state and people’s relation to it. Drawing on original archival work, this paper excavates these state imaginaries and examines how they conditioned activists’ subjectivities in each era. More specifically, this paper argues that the 1960s were marked by an imaginary of the state based on consent, which positioned draft resisters as complicit citizens and engendered a sense of personal responsibility for the war. This state imaginary was displaced in the neoliberal era by an imaginary of the state as an alien and invasive force, which positioned counter-recruitment activists (or their children) as potential prey and impelled efforts at self-defense. Keywords antiwar movement, counter-recruitment, draft resistance, Iraq War, state imaginaries, subjectivities, Vietnam War Introduction Three years into the Vietnam War, a fledgling group calling itself the Resistance 1 began urging young men to engage in acts of non-cooperation – to return their draft cards, relinquish deferments, and refuse induction – as a way of actualizing their opposition to the war. Through widespread draft resistance they hoped to delegitimate and disrupt the functioning of the Selective Service System and, by extension, the war itself. For its first major action, the Resistance organized a national draft card turn-in on 16 October 1967. On that day nearly one thousand young men Corresponding author: Emily Brissette, Department of Sociology, Bridgewater State University, 131 Summer Street, Bridgewater, MA 02325, USA. Email: erbrissette@gmail.com 582091CRS 0 0 10.1177/0896920515582091Critical SociologyBrissette research-article 2015 Article