The generalised bio-political border? Re-conceptualising the limits of sovereign power

Review of International Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 729-749

  Vaughan Williams, Nick ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70349165553     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210509990155     Document Type: Article

References (161)

1. E. Balibar, 'The Borders of Europe', trans. J. Swenson, in P. Cheah and B. Robbins (eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 217-8.
2. C. Brown, 'Globalisation', in C. Brown with K. Ainley (eds), Understanding International Relations, 3 (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), p. 167.
3. S. Strange, 'The Westfailure System', Review of International Studies, 25:3 (1999), pp. 345-54.
4. D. Held and A. McGrew (eds), The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalisation Debate (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), p. 39;
5. J. A. Scholte, Globalisation: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2000), pp. 135-6.
6. P. Hirst and G. Thompson, 'Globalisation in Question' (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000);
7. P. Hirst and G. Thompson, 'The Future of Globalisation', Cooperation and Conflict, 37 (2002), pp. 255-66.
8. M. Weber, 'Politics as a Vocation', in H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Kegan Paul, 1948), p. 78.
9. B. Carlson, J. Warner and K. Wang, 'Foreword', The SAIS Review of International Affairs, Special Issue on 'Borders', 26:1 (Winter-Spring, 2006), pp. 1-2.
10. H. Starr, 'International Borders: What They Are, What They Mean, and Why We Should Care', The SAIS Review of International Affairs, Special Issue on 'Borders', 26:1 (Winter-Spring, 2006), pp. 3-10;
11. E. Zureik and M. Salter, 'Introduction', in E. Zureik and M. Salter (eds), Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security, Identity (Cullompton, Devon and Portland, Oregon: Willan Publishing, 2005), p. 1;
12. D. Newman, 'Borders and Bordering: Towards an Inter-Disciplinary Dialogue', p. 181.
13. R. B. J. Walker, 'Inside/outside: International Relations as Political Theory' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
14. A. Jarvis and A. Paolini, 'Locating the State', in J. Camilleri, A. Jarvis, and A. Paolini (eds), The State in Transition: Reimagining Political Space (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), pp. 1-4.
15. Walker frequently implies the inadequacy of the inside/outside model conditioned by the concept of the border of the state, see: R. B. J. Walker, 'Inside/outside', p. 20, p. 159, p. 161;
16. R. B. J. Walker, 'Sovereignty, Identity, Community: Reflections on the Horizons of Contemporary Political Practice' in R. B. J. Walker and S. H. Mendlovitz (eds), Contending Sovereignties: Redefining Political Community (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990), p. 180;
17. R. B. J. Walker 'Foreword' in J. Edkins, N. Persram and V. Pin-Fat (eds), Sovereignty and Subjectivity (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), p. xii;
18. R. B. J. Walker, 'On the Immanence/Imminence of Empire', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31:1 (2002), p. 343;
19. and Walker, After the Globe/Before the World (Unpublished manuscript) p. 1.
20. R. B. J. Walker, 'International/inequality', International Studies Review, 4:2 (2002), p. 17.
21. A. Mbembe, 'Necropolitics', trans. L. Meintjes, Public Culture, 15:1, pp. 11-40.
22. See also A. Mbembe, 'At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality and Sovereignty in Africa', Public Culture, 12 (2000), pp. 259-84.
23. Z. Laïdi, 'A World Without Meaning: the Crisis of Meaning in International Politics' (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 97.
24. L. Amoore, 'Biometric Borders: Governing Mobilities in the War on Terror', Political Geography, 25 (2006), pp. 336-51.
25. D. Bigo, 'The Möbius Ribbon of Internal and External Security(ies)', in M. Albert, D. Jacobson and Y. Lapid (eds), Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory (Minnesota and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), pp. 91-116.
26. D. Campbell, 'Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity' (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
27. Y. Lapid, 'Introduction: Identities, Borders, Orders: Nudging International Relations Theory in a New Direction', in M. Albert et al (eds), Identities, Borders, Orders, p. 2.
28. N. Parker, 'A Theoretical Introduction: Spaces, Centres, and Margins', in N. Parker (ed.), The Geopolitics of Europe's Identity: Centres, Boundaries, and Margins (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 3-24.
29. C. Rumford, 'Introduction: Theorising Borders', European Journal of Social Theory, 9:2 (2006), pp. 155-69.
30. G. O Tuathail and S. Dalby (eds), Rethinking Geopolitics (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 29.
31. M. J. Shapiro, 'Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War' (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
32. W. Walters, 'Mapping Schengenland: Denaturalising the Border', Environment and Planning (D): Society and Space, 20:5, (2002), pp. 564-80
33. and W. Walters, 'Border/Control', European Journal of Social Theory, 9:2 (2006), pp. 187-203.
34. R. B. J. Walker, 'Inside/outside', p. 159.
35. A. Closs Stephens and N. Vaughan-Williams (eds), Terrorism and the Politics of Response (London and New York: Routledge, 2008);
36. E. Dauphinee and C. Masters (eds), Living, Dying, Surviving: the Logics of Biopower and the War on Terror (New York: Palgrave, 2007);
37. J. Edkins, V. Pin-Fat, and M. J Shapiro, (eds), Sovereign Lives: Power in Global Politics (New York: Routledge, 2004).
38. A. Neal, 'Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter-Terrorism: Liberty, Security, and the War on Terrorism' (London and New York: Routledge, 2009);
39. M. Neocleous, 'The Problem with Normality: Taking Exception to "Permanent Emergency"', Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31 (2006), pp. 191-293;
40. S. Prozorov, 'X/Xs: Towards a General Theory of the Exception', Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 30 (2005), pp. 81-112.
41. J. Butler, 'Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence' (London and New York: Verso, 2004);
42. W. Connolly, 'The Complexity of Sovereignty', in J. Edkins et al, Sovereign Lives, pp. 23-41.
43. At the time of writing the Homo Sacer series translated into English includes: G. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life' (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998);
44. 'Remnants of Auschwitz: the Witness and the Archive' (New York: Zone Books, 1999);
45. and 'State of Exception', (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
46. Ibid., p. 28.
47. Ibid., p. 28.
48. Ibid., p. 28.
49. See G. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 1
50. and G. Agamben, 'Form-of-Life', in P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 151.
51. By now there is growing literature on the relationship between Agamben and Foucault, which, especially in the Politics and IR literature, tends to privilege the importance of the latter over the former. See, for example, A. Neal, 'Cutting Off the King's Head: Foucault's Society Must Be Defended and the Problem of Sovereignty', Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 29 (2004), pp. 373-98;
52. A. Neal, 'Foucault in Guantanano: Towards an Archaeology of the Exception', Security Dialogue, 39:1 (2006), pp. 31-46;
53. M. Ojakangas, 'Impossible Dialogue on Bio-Power: Agamben and Foucault', Foucault Studies, 2 (May 2005), pp. 5-28.
54. (Quoted in) Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 3.
55. Ibid., p. 4.
56. Ibid., p. 9.
57. Ibid., p. 6 (emphasis in original).
58. Ibid., p. 6.
59. J. Edkins, 'Trauma and the Memory of Politics'(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 180.
60. J-L Nancy, 'Abandoned Being', trans. B. Holmes, in J-L Nancy (ed.), The Birth to Presence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 36-47.
61. C. Schmitt, 'Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty', trans. G. Schwab, 3rd Edition, (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2005).
62. W. Benjamin, 'On the Concept of History', in H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938-1940 (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003) [1940], pp. 389-400.
63. G. Agamben, 'Means Without Ends: Notes on Politics', trans. V. Binetti and C. Casarino (Minnesota: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000), p. 139.
64. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 9 (emphasis added).
65. G. Agamben, 'Interview with Giorgio Agamben - Life, A Work of Art Without an Author: the State of Exception, the Administration of Disorder, and Private Life', German Law Review, 5:5 (2004) p. 612.
66. See A. N. Whitehead, 'Science and the Modern World: the Lowell Lectures 1925' (London: Free Association Books, 1985)
67. and S. Kwinter, 'Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
68. G. Agamben, 'Interview with Giorgio Agamben', p. 612.
69. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 37.
70. Agamben, Ibid, p. 37.
71. Ibid., p. 612.
72. G. Agamben, 'Interview with Giorgio Agamben', p. 612.
73. The term 'bare life' is Daniel Heller-Roazen's translation of 'nuda vita', contained in the sub-title of Agamben's original Homo Sacer: Il Potere Sovrano e la Nuda Vita. However, not all scholars agree with this translation. For example, Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino translate 'nuda vita' as 'naked life', see 'Translators' Notes' in G. Agamben, 'Means Without End', p. 143.
74. See, for example, J. Edkins and V. Pin-Fat, 'Through the Wire'. Edkins and Pin-Fat note that the concept of bare life is contentious and open to different readings. However, they set-up and use the terms 'bare or naked life' and 'zoē' interchangeably (pp. 6-7).
75. For other examples of this tendency see: J. Butler, 'Precarious Life', p. 67;
76. J. Edkins, 'Missing Persons: Manhattan, September 2001' in E. Dauphinee and C. Masters (eds), Living, Dying, Surviving;
77. C. Lausten and B. Diken, 'Zones of Indistinction: Security, Terror, and Bare Life', Space and Culture, 5:3 (2002), pp. 290-307;
78. A. Norris, 'Giorgio Agamben and the Politics of the Living Dead' in A. Norris (ed.), Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005);
79. and M. Ojakangas 'Impossible Dialogue on Bio-Power: Agamben and Foucault', Foucault Studies, 2 (May 2005), p. 7.
80. G. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 109 (Emphasis added).
81. J. Butler, 'Precarious Life', p. 67.
82. I must acknowledge my thanks to Alex Murray for this formulation.
83. Agamben, 'State of Exception', pp. 87-8.
84. Response of the United States of America, dated 21 October 2005, to the inquiry of the Special Rapporteurs of the UN dated 8 August 2005 pertaining to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, p. 52.
85. United Nations Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights, 'Situation of Detainees in Guantanamo Bay', 15 February 2006, E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 24.
86. Ibid., pp. 24-5.
87. {http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng}
88. In June 2004 the Supreme Court held that US courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of detention of foreign nationals in Guantanamo. However, no habeas corpus petition has been decided on the merits by a US Federal Court. E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 15.
89. Ibid., p. 3 (Emphasis added).
90. Ibid., p. 12.
91. E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 13.
92. Ibid., p. 12.
93. Ibid., p. 12.
94. The UN report on the situation of detainees in Guantanamo points out that the US government relies upon the deliberate cultivation of ambiguity in order to flout the Geneva Conventions. E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 23.
95. Butler, 'Precarious Life', p. 98.
96. Ibid., p. 74.
97. Ibid., p. 98.
98. G. Agamben, 'Means Without End', p. 138.
99. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 111.
100. Butler, 'Precarious Life', p. 68.
101. Ibid., p. 68.
102. Ibid., p. 68.
103. W. Connolly, 'The Complexity of Sovereignty', in Edkins et al, Sovereign Lives.
104. Ibid., p. 28.
105. Ibid., p. 29.
106. Ibid., p. 29.
107. Ibid., p. 29.
108. For examples of other attempted critiques of Agamben's work along these lines see A. Neal, 'Cutting Off the King's Head' and A. Neal, 'Foucault in Guantanamo'.
109. The notable exception here is the work of Political Geographer Claudio Minca. See C. Minca, 'Agamben's Geographies of Modernity', Political Geography, 26:1 (2007), pp. 78-97;
110. C. Minca, 'Giorgio Agamben and the New Biopolitical Nomos', Geografiska Annaler, 88B:4 (2006), pp. 387-403;
111. and C. Minca, 'The Return of the Camp', Progress in Human Geography, 29 (2005), pp. 405-12.
112. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 187.
113. C. Schmitt, 'Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty', trans. G. Schwab, 3rd Edition (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2005).
114. Ibid, p. 63.
115. W. Benjamin, 'Critique of Violence', in M. Bullock and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume One 1913-1926 (Cambridge, MA and London: the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 236-52.
116. W. Benjamin, 'On the Concept of History', in H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938-1940 (Cambridge, MA and London: The Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 392.
117. Agamben, 'State of Exception', p. 58.
118. The Nazi state proclaimed a state of exception in 1933 but this was never repealed.
119. Agamben, 'State of Exception', p. 29.
120. (Quoted in) Agamben, 'The State of Exception', p. 19.
121. Ibid., p. 2.
122. Ibid., p. 2.
123. Ibid., p. 2.
124. Ibid., p. 3.
125. I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for this formulation and their critical commentary on Agamben more generally.
126. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 4, p. 9;
127. Agamben, 'Means Without End', p. 39;
128. Agamben, 'State of Exception', pp. 2-3.
129. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 6, p. 7, p. 8, p. 19, p. 28, p. 83;
130. Agamben, 'Means Without End', p. 37;
131. Agamben, 'State of Exception', p. 3, pp. 6-7.
132. Ibid., p. 87.
133. D. Bigo, 'The Ban the Pan and the Exception', p. 5.
134. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', pp. 18-9.
135. C. Schmitt, 'The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum', trans. G. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press, 2003).
136. See, for example, M. Salter, 'The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self: Borders, Bodies, Biopolitics', Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31:2 (2006), pp. 167-89.
137. N. Vaughan-Williams, 'Virtual Border (In)Security', paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New York, February, 2009.
138. See also F. Debrix, 'Banning Space: The Nomos of Exception and Virtual Territoriality', paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Las Vegas, March 2009.
139. Agamben, Means Without End, p. 37.
140. Ibid., p. 40.
141. Ibid., p. 41.
142. Ibid., pp. 40-1.
143. Ibid., p. 39.
144. Ibid., p. 37.
145. Ibid., p. 40.
146. Ibid., pp. 171-2.
147. Ibid., p. 45.
148. Ibid., p. 174.
149. Ibid., p. 39.
150. Minca, 'Giorgio Agamben and the New Biopolitical Nomos', p. 388.
151. Ibid., p. 388.
152. E. Weizman, 'On Extraterritoriality', in G. Agamben et al (eds), Arxipèlag D'Excepcions: Sobiranies de l'extraterritorialitat (Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona: 2007), p. 13.
153. Balibar, 'The Borders of Europe' (1998), p. 220.
154. BBC News Report, Menezes death a 'state execution', 19 September 2005, {http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/uk-politics/4261136.stm}
155. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 29.
156. For further elaboration of my argument on the shooting of Menezes in this context see N. Vaughan-Williams, 'The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: New Border Politics?' Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 32:2 (June 2007), pp. 177-95.
157. Account given by BBC news website, {http://bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5075952.stm} accessed on 14 June 2006.
158. According to police shooting guidelines officers can shoot 'to stop an imminent threat to life'. However, firearms officers must identify themselves and give oral warnings of their intent to shoot. Shots are only to be fired in the 'most serious and exceptional circumstances'. See {http://bbc.co. uk/1/hi/uk/5042724.stm.}
159. Account given by BBC news website, {http://bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5075952.stm} accessed on 14 June 2006.
160. Agamben, 'Homo Sacer', p. 187 (Emphasis added).
161. P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 7 (Emphasis added).