Dissertation - final draft

The state of exception as characterised by the use of

biopolitics and the production of homo sacer: examining the

war on terror in the UK and France.

Department of Politics

UG dissertation

Exam candidate number: Y1482732

Word count: 9997


Abstract:

Since September 11th 2001 (9/11) there have been numerous attempts to understand the

subsequent ‘war on terror’ by the United States through the writings of Giorgio Agamben

and Michel Foucault. However, the vast majority of this work reifies the concepts employed

in the works of Agamben and Foucault to the context of the US war on terror despite there

having been many more attacks, several in Europe, with the emergence of ‘ISIS’. The works

of Agamben and Foucault, however, have not been applied to these atrocities and the

subsequent responses of countries such as France and the UK as it has been to 9/11 and the

US response. Due to the vast cultural, legal and political differences between the US and

Europe, this essay seeks to fill the gap in the literature by applying Agamben and Foucault’s

insights to the responses to terror by France, a country which has suffered two atrocities at

the hands of ISIS in 2015, and also the UK, which has only been victim of one serious attack

in 2005 but which has been instrumental in the war on terror. Throughout the essay I will

refer primarily to the works of Agamben as well as Foucault and Schmitt where necessary,

and concepts including ‘the state of exception’, ‘homo sacer’ and ‘biopolitics’. I will also

draw comparisons between the responses of France and the UK to that of the US as this

paper will propose the argument that that the former countries drew from the precedent,

set by the US, in their dealings with terrorism.

258 words

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Contents

1. Introduction......................................................................................................................4

2. Literature review..............................................................................................................7

2.1. Theoretical Context...................................................................................................7

2.2. 9/11: The US war on terror......................................................................................13

2.3. Methodology........................................................................................................... 15

3. An illegitimate party of war: foes and enemies.............................................................18

4. Pre-emptive security......................................................................................................20

5. The camp incarnate........................................................................................................24

5.1. Black sites................................................................................................................ 26

6. Risk management...........................................................................................................28

7. Implications for liberal democracy: paradoxical relationships.....................................33

7.1. The camp................................................................................................................. 33

7.2. Pre-emptive security................................................................................................35

7.3. Risk management....................................................................................................37

8. Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 41

Appendices.............................................................................................................................43

Bibliography........................................................................................................................... 44

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“In the eyes of authority – and maybe rightly so – nothing looks more like a

terrorist than the ordinary man.”

― Giorgio Agamben, 2009

“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

― Carl Schmitt, 2005

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1. Introduction

Following the attacks on New York City on September 11th 2001, George Bush, instigated a

‘war on terror’ which was to last for decades. Much literature has been devoted to

examining the exceptional measures by which this war operates with reference to the works

of Agamben, Schmitt and Foucault. Agamben declared that the “exception has become the

rule” (1998) and this has subsequently been applied to the United States’ war on terror as

an explanation of abnormal measures used by the US such as Guantanamo Bay for instance.

More recent attacks, such as those in Paris, have received much less of a focus in literature

and have not had the same theories applied to them. In the case of the Paris attacks of

2015, this is simply due to the fact that they happened so recently and so academics have

not had the same time frame to examine the response of President Hollande’s government

in the same way they examined the Bush administration’s response. Similarly, the ‘7/7’, the

attacks on London in 2005 have not received the same attention as their trans-Atlantic

counterparts. This essay will examine the responses of the French and British governments

to terror, putting forward the argument that the US war on terror has set a precedent which

has been adopted across the West. The US response in the wake of 9/11 represented a

drastic shift in security paradigm, a shift marked by a move from defence to prevention and

from danger to risk. As such, the ‘state of exception’ has been institutionalised as a

permanent feature of security policies across the West.

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This paper will concentrate solely on France and the UK, as both have experienced terrorist

atrocities in recent years, and will make two claims: First, that US security has seen a shift in

paradigm following 9/11 which has institutionalised the state of exception as the norm;

secondly that this shift has been emulated by France and the UK in their responses to terror

and in their security policies, representing a shift in paradigm across the West and therefore

creating the state of exception as a permanent condition of the political order. This

argument will proceed in seven stages.

Section 2 will be a discussion of Giorgio Agamben’s essay, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and

Bare Life in some detail so as to aid in understanding the exceptional mode of operation on

which the war on terror rests. It then seems prudent to examine the origin of the ‘war on

terror’ and, in doing so, we will examine the US response to 9/11 and examine how

Agamben’s theories have previously been applied to this series of events. The paper will

then go on to examine similarities between the US response and those of the UK and France

with regard to terrorist attacks. Although similarities will be drawn throughout the essay,

Section 3 will specifically examine how terrorists are treated as ‘foes’ as opposed to

‘enemies’, a distinction made by Schmitt that will be examined in detail. Agamben asserts

that the ‘exception has become the rule’, citing practices that were previously confined to

‘the camp’ which are now prevalent in peoples’ everyday lives – the camp being

characterised as the location where a permanent state of exception manifests: where chaos

and law are at a point of obscurity, producing homo sacer (see appendix 1). Homo sacer

translates as ‘sacred man’ and is a Roman concept referring to a criminal stripped of all legal

and political rights. Though unable to be killed by the state, anyone who does so cannot be

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convicted of homicide. This concept will be explored in depth during the literature review

and in Section 3.

Section 4 will examine sites where ‘the camp’ still exists but following on from this, section 5

will demonstrate how Agamben is right to say that certain exceptional measures previously

confined to ‘the camp’ are now normalised in society. In making this argument, the paper

will specifically focus upon practices of ‘risk management’ – domestic spying resulting from

everyone being a possible suspect in the war on terror. Lastly, this paper will weigh up, and

conclude with, what the implications of this shift in paradigm are for democracy and

whether the US has indeed set a precedent among Western states in their dealings with

terrorism, essentially making the exception the global political norm.

The state of exception and biopolitics are both omnipresent throughout this paper and the

principles and theories discussed are examples of forms of biopolitics and forms which the

state of exception takes.

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2. Literature review

2.1. Theoretical Context

The following section will discuss the works of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in

some detail as it will be these works that will form the basis around later discussions

regarding the war on terror by the UK and France. In order to understand the war on terror

and to answer whether the UK and France are indeed following a precedent set by the US

following 9/11, we must examine the existing literature which has already applied

Agamben’s theories to the US response to 9/11.

Agamben examines the relationship between sovereignty and ‘the camp’: the camp being

characterised as the location where a permanent manifests; chaos and law meet at a point

of obscurity, producing homo sacer. Agamben describes the camp as “the most absolute

biopolitical space which has ever been realised” – a space whereby “power has before it

pure biological life.” (1998: p.171). In reality, this translates to those detained by such

camps being the bearer of the sovereign ban: to them everyone is sovereign and those who

commit acts of violence upon this person cannot be incriminated.

Homo sacer can be translated to mean bare life and was originally a Roman concept which

Agamben appropriated for the modern day to describe events which have taken place such

as Nazi concentration camps and, more recently, Guantanamo Bay. The term, homo sacer, is

Latin for ‘sacred man’ and refers to someone who had been convicted of a crime and as a

result, stripped of all legal rights. Unable to occupy the same city as Roman citizens, the

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state was not legally able to kill this person, though anyone who did so could not be

convicted of murder with all violence against homo sacer going unpunished.

In his work, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Agamben examines the

relationship in contemporary states between sovereignty and ‘the camp’: the camp being

characterised as the location of a permanent state of exception whereby law and chaos are

at a point of obscurity, allowing for the creation of homo sacer at this site. This ‘camp’ can

be seen in reality in many forms such as Nazi concentrations camps, Guantanamo Bay,

illegal immigrant detention centres and refugee shelters, as will be explored later in this

paper.

Central to this thinking is the notion of sovereignty. Agamben bases much of his thinking on

the work of Carl Schmitt, including his take on the concept of sovereignty. Schmitt was of

the belief that an ability to declare a state of exception is key to the definition of

sovereignty: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (Schmitt, 2005). According to

Schmitt, the state of exception is a fundamental part of the legal order owing to it being an

impossibility for a rule to exist without their being an exception to that rule: “Order must be

established for juridical order to make sense. A regular situation must be created, and

sovereign is he who definitely decides if this situation is actually effective.” (Schmitt, 1922,

as cited in Agamben, 1998: p.16). Traditional Hobbesian definitions of sovereignty as the

legally sanctioned power to rule are thus inversed by Schmitt. Hobbes is of the belief that

sovereignty results from the legally sanctioned power to rule due to a social contract

between the sovereign and their citizens, legally contracting the exchange of sovereignty for

safety and security. Schmitt, however, sees sovereignty as being circular in that it is in a

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constant state of reproducing that it claims to presuppose: the sovereign declaration of a

state of exception simultaneously creates the state of nature, that gives the sovereign

sovereignty, and the rule of law through the abandonment of life and the reduction of some

to bare life or homo sacer. The social contract, therefore, that Hobbes sees as bringing the

sovereign into being, according to Schmitt, masks the fact that sovereignty actually operates

through a sovereign ban: “The originary relation of law to life is not application but

abandonment.” (Agamben, 1998: p.29).

Assuming a Schmittian definition of sovereignty, the sovereign is characterised by his ability

to exempt himself from the law and, secondly, in doing this the sovereign excludes sacred

life from the human-created legal order owing to the fact that the latter may be killed

without punishment. The end result of this is that the sovereign and homo sacer become

mirror images of the sovereign operation: “the sovereign is the one with respect to whom

all men are potentially homines sacri and the homo sacer is the one with respect to whom

all men act as sovereigns.” (Agamben, 1998: p.84). If the sovereign is defined by his

capability to exempt himself from the law, homo sacer must be defined as the bearer of the

sovereign ban. For Schmitt, sovereignty is not displayed in situations of normality but only in

a state of exception: the authentic definition of a political community in that it both

constructs and delimits political space.

Agamben sees Schmitt’s definition as useful although identifies a third variation of order and

localisation, separate from the rule of law and state of exception: “To an order without

localization (the state of exception, in which law is suspended) there now corresponds a

localization without order (the camp as the permanent state of exception).” (Agamben,

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1998: p.175). Agamben views the camp as the area which is created when the state of

exception finds a more permanent location. Therefore, making the camp the structure

whereby the state of exception is able to be realised normally: whereby human life can be

excluded completely from the juridical order (Barder, 2015: p.57).

“The camp is thus the structure in which the state of exception – the possibility of deciding

on which founds sovereign power – is realized normally… [It] actually delimits a space in

which the normal order is de facto suspended and in which whether or not atrocities are

committed depends not on the law but on the civility and ethical sense of the police who

temporarily act as sovereign.” (Agamben, 1998: p.170-171).

Agamben is of the belief that the state of exception has transcended the boundaries of the

camp and is no longer a secret space, hidden behind walls to divide homo sacer from the

external political community. The exception, according to Agamben, has become the rule:

“Today it is not the city but rather the camp that is the fundamental biopolitical paradigm of

the West.” (Agamben, 1998: p.181). While this essay will explore how Agamben is correct in

that there are many institutions and practices in France and the UK whereby the state of

exception has become the norm, I will also explore how the camp has come to exist in

contemporary society following the war on terror, making the terrorist and the suspect

homo sacer, cutting him off from citizens of a state. Instances whereby the exception has

become the norm are instances where the state of exception is not confined to the camp.

This will be explored later in the paper when looking at practices such as biopolitics and

domestic spying: the modern form of the panopticon (see appendix 2), as this paper will put

forward.

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Agamben shares Michel Foucault’s belief that sovereign power to take life has been

replaced by a right to ‘make life’. Modern societies have replaced a threat of death with an

ability to take manipulate biological life. Opposed to threatening subjects with death,

biopolitics is concerned with correcting, administrating and regulating state’s population.

Biopolitics “does not have to draw the line that separates the enemies of the sovereign from

his obedient subjects; it effects distributions around the norm.” (Foucault, 1978: p.144). This

is inextricably linked to discussion regarding homo sacer and bare life.

The implications of this shift are that bare life is not merely produced as a result of the

sovereign taking life, but through a process of making life whereby human life is distributed

around a norm with the purpose of reducing life’s distance to that norm. We can observe

this in practice in domestic spying by the states which this paper is focussed upon. This

paper will put forward the argument that sovereign states are beginning to control their

citizens in a form of biopolitics whereby behaviour is normalised through continual

observation in a similar way to the panopticon, designed by Bentham in the late 18th

century. As previously mentioned, this will be explored further in a later section.

Unlike Foucault however, Agamben’s version of biopolitics “remains strongly focussed on a

general legal argument” (Schuilenburg, 2008: p.1) whereas Foucault views biopolitics from

the point of view of actual “disciplinary excercises of power” (ibid.), focussing on a

‘particular period, in a particular country, as a response to particular needs’ (Foucault, 1985

as cited in Schuilenburg, 2008: p.2). Agamben applies the framework of homo sacer to the

position of the refugee owing to the fact that they often have much fewer rights compared

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to that of citizens of the countries in which they seek asylum. Both conceptions of biopolitics

will be explored in the relevant sections of this essay.

Agamben’s view is that human rights are not universal as being born is not sufficient to be

granted them. Moreover, they are the ‘property of citizens’ as life is absorbed into abstract

variables such as the ‘nation-state’, ‘society’ and ‘law’ (ibid.). This holds relevance in the

paper’s later examinations of homo sacer and biopolitics as it will serve to explain how

states are able to remove someone from society and operate ‘outside’ of the law.

While Agamben argues that a ‘clear figure of homo sacer no longer exists’ (Schuilenburg,

2008: p.2), he also points to specific examples where we are able to identify bare life:

euthanasia and coma patients, for example; but the example most useful for this paper is

that of the Guantanamo Bay detainee. Held with no possibility of trail and without charge

against them, these detainees are labelled as ‘unlawful combatants’, exempting them from

rights under the Geneva Convention such as those they would receive if they were

recognised as prisoners of war. This will receive more coverage in the following section and

will be an ongoing theme through section (2), biopolitics.

Incorporating homo sacer into the political realm has made possible “a kind of bestialization

of man achieved through the most sophisticated political techniques. For the first time in

history…it becomes possible both to protect life and to authorise a holocaust.” (Agamben,

1998: p.3).

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Agamben’s attempt to make sense of sovereign power and homo sacer as one stem from

ethical motivations to deconstruct the legal and political mechanisms which allow for acts of

violence against another human which are not considered criminal.

Without undermining the gravitas, severity and the unique nature of the suffering caused by

Nazi concentration camps, Agamben draws parallels between the structure of these camps

and modern day structures such as immigrant detention centres, airport holding zones and

refugee shelters, among others. The similarities are drawn from the fact that, in each case,

decisions regarding peoples’ lives are made outside of the framework of rule which is

considered usual, though not necessarily illegal nor without connection to the law.

2.2. 9/11: The US war on terror

A direct parallel, therefore, may be drawn between Agamben’s writings of the camp as a

zone of indistinction and the logic purported by the US government with regard to their war

on terror, following the attacks of 9/11. In addition, with the physical emergence of camp-

like structures such as detainment centres for suspected terrorists, it could be said that the

war on terror is reliant upon, and operates through, Agamben’s theoretical sovereign ban.

Much literature has examined this parallel between the work of Agamben and the war on

terror, with reference to the works of Schmitt and Foucault, and so this section seeks to

identify these parallels as it is fundamental in setting out the argument set out in this paper,

that the UK and France have followed a US precedent in their dealings with the war on

terror.

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Firstly, we must examine the origin of the term, ‘war on terror’, devised in the United

States, by the Bush Administration following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Prior to these

attacks, the starting point for US security was defence against an actual, physical, concrete

danger. However, security policy following 9/11 soon changed from defending against this

concreate threat to prevention against this threat from emerging as a danger in the first

place: “We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of

today’s adversaries…to forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United

States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively.” (U.S. National Security Strategy, 2002). This

departure from the previous status quo comes, not necessarily as a result of the behaviour

of the US, but as a result of potential behaviours.

The war on terror cannot be located as a ‘traditional’ war can owing to the ability of

terrorists to attack anywhere, at any time of their choosing. Neither can the specific danger

be pinpointed, as all dangers are potentially linked to terror from illegal immigration to

hydrogen peroxide which can be used to make bombs. Terrorism is predicated largely on

uncertainty which engenders fear and anxiety and it is on this basis that the war on terror is

able to operate. Everything becomes suspicious: “Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled

in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout

the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning.” (U.S. National Security

Strategy, 2002).

Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, made the statement that, “The job of the new

Terrorist Screening Center is to make sure we get this information out to our agents on the

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borders and all those who can put it to use on the front lines - and to get it there fast."

(Department of Justice, 2003).

However, by using the term ‘front line’ to describe the war on terrorism Ridge misses the

point, as there are no front lines in the war on terror. This is a war in which the ‘front’ is

everywhere, placing everyone as a suspect and ensuring that no one is exempt from the

network of surveillance and inspection. As Agamben points out: “A war against terrorism is

a contradiction in terms, because the state of war is defined precisely by the possibility of

identifying, and this in a way that is certain, the enemy that must be fought.” (Agamben,

2015). As a result, the United States has created a ‘digital panopticon’ which, unlike the

traditional variant, everyone is under surveillance all of the time. This concept will be

explored further in Section 7 in which the implications of mass surveillance will be

considered.

2.3. Methodology

This paper utilises a wide range of research to demonstrate the validity of the arguments

put forward. It uses a very wide range of literature regarding the US war on terror as this is

very useful starting point on which to base the argument that the UK and France have

followed the US model in their war on terror. Para

However, literature relating to responses by the UK to terror is somewhat limited, and even

more so in the case of France, where literature is practically non-existent due to the recent

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nature of the Paris attacks. As a result this paper relies heavily upon newspaper articles,

speeches and legislation in putting forward its argument.

This study may be considered original research as the paper is applying as of yet unapplied

theories to recent events on which there is no academic literature, requiring me to focus

largely upon media. Furthermore, the idea that the US has set an international precedent

among Western countries in their dealing with terrorism, as a result of their political

hegemony, is an unexplored theory which I believe important for liberal democracy, as I will

explore in my final section.

It is essential that content for this paper is selected appropriately which was done by

ensuring a focus upon the ‘study population’ (Kumar, 2011: p.55). As a result, this study

utilised a range of newspapers across the three countries studied – the US, UK and France.

This allows for a broad and informative content analysis. Practical constraints regarding

language were overcome using an online translator enabling the use of French sources so

that an accurate picture could be built which is representative of national culture. National

newspapers may also be more informed with regard to domestic interviews so the inclusion

of newspapers from a variety of countries allows for increased accuracy in the paper’s

findings.

I will also utilise a somewhat limited discourse analysis for the purposes of examining the

way in which leaders of the US, UK and France refer to their fight with terrorists. In doing so,

this will enable the argument to be put forward that Schmittian distinctions between

‘enemy’ and ‘foe’ enable the creation of homo sacer within the context of war. Discourse

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analyses are extremely useful in gaining an understanding of the underlying meaning behind

speech and text

Limitations of this method, and the way in which it is being utilised for the purposes of this

paper, must be acknowledged however in order to determine how this research could be

improved for possible future studies. For example, further research could be conducted with

regard to the 2016 attacks on Brussels, allowing further generalisation to Europe, or with

regard to the 2014 Sydney Hostage Crisis, allowing further generalisation to the wider West.

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3. An illegitimate party of war: foes and enemies

In the war on terror, the terrorist becomes ‘bare life’ and encompasses Agamben’s homo

sacer as the bearer of the sovereign ban. Terrorists are not considered a legitimate party in

war, according to the language of war. Moreover terrorists are criminalised and considered

unlawful combatants. This distinction between unlawful combatants and enemy combatant

is comparable to Schmitt’s distinction between ‘enemy’ and ‘foe’. Enemy, according to

Schmitt, describes a concrete other that presents an existential threat to the self, such as an

enemy state. Foe on the other hand refers to one who is criminalised and morally degraded

fit, not merely to be defeated but to be completely destroyed. Schmitt refers to an ‘inhuman

enemy’ and is of the belief that ‘war against this kind of inhuman enemy – against an

‘absolute enemy’…is also usually intense and inhuman. It is not possible to treat an inhuman

enemy humanely. It is not sufficient that he be defeated: he must be utterly destroyed.”

(Schmitt, 1996 as cited in Odysseos and Petito, 2007: p.205). This allows us to make sense of

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s rhetoric with regard to ISIS,1 vowing to “destroy this

Caliphate” (Gander, 2015), urging Vladimir Putin to “destroy ISIS once and for all”

(Independent, 2015) and claiming that “we’d be safer in Britain if we destroy ISIL.” (ibid.).

Cameron uses the words ‘destroy’ and ‘defeat’ interchangeably, suggesting that defeat

equates to destroy meaning that his real aim is to eradicate terror, not merely suppress it.

Attributed

Likewise, French President Francois Hollande promised to “détruire l'armée de fanatiques”

(Le Huffington Post, 2015) – to “destroy the army of fanatics” (Sims, 2016) who committed

1 There are a variety of names ascribed to this organisation used by different leaders, authors and journalists: ISIS, IS and ISIL. For the purposes of consistency, throughout this paper ISIS will be used, except in quotations.

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the attacks on Paris in November 2015, killing 130 people. The following January, Hollande

said that the “bombing campaign against ISIS will “accelerate” airstrikes” (Parfitt, 2015),

prompting “ministers from the United States, Britain and four other countries…to escalate

their campaign against ISIS” (ibid.). Both Cameron and Hollande echo the sentiments of

Obama who promised in a speech that, “we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL”

(Hudson, 2014).

There is a very clear parallel between the responses between Britain and France and the

rhetoric of the leaders, with Messrs. Hollande, Cameron and Obama using the word

‘destroy’ to describe their aim when combatting ISIS. The war on terror is presented as a

war on behalf of “not only national and international security but also human security”

(Singh, 2015). From the leaders’ use of language in referring to ISIS it is clear that any notion

that the enemy hold value is denied and thus, the enemy is presented as Schmitt’s ‘foe’

allowing for exceptional measures to be taken in defeating them. This distinction allows for

a move away from traditional notions of security, which are reliant upon defending against a

concrete danger, and towards a model of pre-emptive security, as will be explored in the

Section 4, as well as the inhuman treatment of captured enemies, explored in Section 5.

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4. Pre-emptive security

As mentioned in Section 2.2., following after the attacks 9/11, the US saw a seismic shift in

the way in which it dealt with security. Moving towards a system of pre-emptive security,

everyone became suspects causing not only an increase in domestic spying, but also an

exporting of security in order to move the risk further away from developing into a physical

danger to the US. This policy, initially conceived in the US National Security Strategy, is one

that has been adopted across the West, including in the UK, and has been enacted in the

form of pre-emptive drone strikes (McCann and Hope, 2015).

The following will demonstrate this through the actions that have been taken by the UK and

France, showing that they have both adopted the precedent set by the US in the wake of

9/11. In both cases the states now respond to terror in the same vain since, due to the

uncertain nature of terrorism is becomes impossible to deal with it merely as a national

issue. Moreover, it must be tackled by changing the global political order. Post-9/11, the US

implemented various measures which exempted it from international law. As such, a

precedent was set which has been adopted and followed by other Western states in the

wake of terrorist attacks.

On July 7 2005, four explosions shook London in quick succession, three on the

Underground and one on a bus, “killing 52 people and leaving 770 injured” (Feikert-Ahalt,

2013). This marked the first Islamist suicide attack on British shores and was the worst

terrorist incident since the 1988 ‘Lockerbie bombing’ (Maclachlan, 2015: p.96). Following

these attacks of 7/7, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, declared that “the rules of the

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game for terrorists were changing” and that he was “introducing a multifaceted twelve

point plan against terrorism.” (Feikert-Ahalt, 2013). These twelve measures “were intended

to offer a greater degree of collective security; each came at considerable cost to the

liberties of both individuals and groups of people” (Cobain, 2010).

Following the 7/7 attacks, the number of British nationals detained and tortured abroad saw

an increase “at the request of British authorities, who had been well aware how they would

be treated.” (Cobain, 2010). Although the UK did not have an ‘extraordinary rendition’

programme of its own, it was complicit in that of the United States’ as will be shown in

Section 5.1.

The UK also reacted to the attacks in Paris with an increase in security: Home Secretary

Theresa May is quoted as saying: “As we find out more about what has happened in Paris,

we will be looking to see if there are more lessons to be learned in the UK.” (Syal, 2015).

These lessons learned have resulted in a heavy increase in armed police officers on London’s

streets “to make sure that the police have the capability to deal with these incidents” (ibid.).

As of 26 November 2015, UK drones had carried out “at least 17 strikes in Iraq since [the]

Paris attacks” showing considerable evidence that the UK is adopting a pre-emptive strategy

similar to that of the US. This is confirmed by David Cameron’s comments in the wake of the

attacks on Paris a month previously: that it must be decided whether Britain takes on the

“evil” of ISIS in Syria or “wait for them to attack us.” (Wintour and Watt, 2015) in the wake

of the attacks on Paris a month previous. Cameron also rejected the notion that the United

Nations Security Council’s approval was required in order to carry out these strikes saying

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that he “would not outsource to Russian veto” decisions regarding national security

(Badshah, 2015). This echoes the sentiments of the US National Security Strategy: “We

cannot let our enemies strike first” (Ciment, 2015: p.1712) demonstrating that Cameron is

adopting the same policy of ‘virtual security’ by intervening before a danger emerges but

keeping at a distance where it remains a risk.

Likewise, France responded to the attacks on Paris by “intensifie ses frappes” (Le Monde,

2015) – by “intensifying its strikes”. Le Monde (2015) asserted that, since the attacks on 13

November, Paris has increased its role in the American-led Coalition against ISIS, currently

(as of December 2015) leading 5% of bombings compares to 80% led by the US. This

statistic, while not helpful with reference to the increase in French airstrikes without a point

of reference nontheless reinforce US military hegemony among the West, demonstrating

that the US leads the way in which it responds to terror.

As in both of the previous cases, France has taken part in extensive bombing of Syria among

other countries including Iraq and Afghanistan. This shows a concerted effort to move away

from danger and towards risk – the strategy being to prevent the risk from becoming a

concrete danger in the first place. Though on the other hand, it could be argued that any air

strikes in the wake of the Paris attack are not pre-emptive as they are clearly a direct

response to the atrocity for which ISIS claimed responsibility.

This argument does not stand up upon closer inspection, however. For example, upon

examination of the nationalities of the attackers it becomes apparent that all of the known

attackers were of EU nationality and as a result were able to cross borders easily due to

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Schengen rules allowing the freedom of movement for EU nationals: “all of the known Paris

attackers were EU nationals, either French or Belgian, who found it relatively easy to travel

back and forth to and within Europe without major problems even when they were

registered as terrorism suspects in the Schengen or national databases.” (Traynor, 2015). Air

strikes in Syria following these attacks, then, cannot be said to be a reaction against those

who coordinated the attacks since those people are EU nationals, not of Syrian origin. At

least some of the perpetrators had visited Syria and it is alleged that it was here that they

were radicalised, marking a ‘change in paradigm’ whereby the returning EU citizens are

themselves the attackers (ref). The bombing of Syria following the attacks however follows

the US model of security. Neither does this argument stand up when we consider the

motivations of the attacks, one of which being an objection “to airstrikes against its militants

in Syria” (Elgot, Phippse and Bucks, 2015).

We can infer therefore that the airstrikes were indeed a response to the attacks in Paris but

that they were pre-emptive in the sense that there was no concrete danger that could have

been confronted. The threat in Syria had not fully emerged being as it presented no direct

danger to France. The threat which emerged originated from Europe and so a response to

the direct threat to security should take place there, not in Syria. The pre-emptive nature of

the airstrikes in Syria, on top of the response to the direct threat to security in Belgium and

Paris in which those involved in the Paris attacks were arrested, demonstrates that the US

model of pre-emptive security against a threat which is not concrete has become the norm.

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5. The camp incarnate

Noted previously, the treatment and detainment of those involved in terrorism is another

aspect of the war on terror which makes visible the transformation of terrorists into homo

sacer. Many of those detained on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities have not

been charged with any offence. This follows from an Order “announcing that, because of the

threat of terrorism, [the UK] no longer intended to uphold the right to liberty under the

European Convention on Human Rights in certain terrorism-related circumstances.” (Liberty,

n.d.).

Perhaps the most overt and well publicised materialisation of ‘the camp’ in recent years is

Guantanamo Bay, a detention centre for suspected terrorists. There is perhaps no other

structure in existence today where the deprecation of life to bare life is quite so clear,

making it possible to commit acts of violence upon detainees without any notion of

criminality. Agamben drew parallels between Nazi concentration camps and structures in

existence today and, while the uniqueness of the suffering incurred in concentration camps

cannot be understated, Guantanamo Bay is the closest structure in existence today to the

concentration camps in that it embodies much of the same political structures.

The transformation of life into bare life is much more evident in the US due to their

persistent use of Guantanamo whereby detainees are successfully kept outside of

international regulation, including the Geneva Convention. Here, detainees are exempt from

‘prisoner of war’ status, required by the Geneva Convention and neither do they have

24


access to any rights under the US constitution owing to the camp’s locality being outside of

US borders.

Guantanamo Bay exists on a site which is outside of US borders. Located in Cuba, the site is

held as a naval base by the US under a perpetual lease. As such, it does not abide by

international laws and regulation such as the Geneva Convention. This is evidenced by

‘Camp Five Echo’ and ‘Camp Platinum’ both of which have been called out by lawyers

claiming that the camps do not meet the minimum standards required by the Geneva

Convention. Camp Five Echo, for example has been criticised by lawyers claiming that the

“cells are too small to be regarded as humane, that the toilets are inadequate, the lights are

too bright and the air in the cells is foul” (Worthington, 2011). Likewise, lawyers have

contended “that conditions at Camp 7 fall short of the minimum guarantees of humane

treatment under the Geneva Conventions.” (Savage, 2012).

As Agamben successfully drew parallels between Nazi concentration camps and border

practices, this essay too will consider the distinct features shared by Guantanamo Bay and

practices of the United Kingdom and France, while ensuring the unique natures of either are

not overlooked. In each instance, the politico-juridical structure of ‘the camp’, as

understood by Agamben to mean the location of the ‘state of exception’ is evident due to

the fact that detainees are stripped of all legal rights – entirely subject to the power able to

be exercised upon them. Thus, detainees of Guantanamo Bay have become the bearers of

Agamben’s theorised sovereign ban. We are able to observe similar structures, much less

severe though no less outside the bounds of what is considered usual, in the UK and France.

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5.1. Black sites

We are able to observe a difference between the US war on terror to that of the UK and

France’s counterparts. While it has been revealed that the then Prime Minister Tony Blair

may have been complicit in the setting up of Guantanamo Bay, or at the very least knew of

the acts of torture – so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’ – which occurred there, the UK does

not have such an overt camp which encompasses bare life quite so thoroughly. It has been

alleged that the UK and France have both been involved in ‘black sites’ in which the US

utilise their territory for the purpose of detaining terrorist suspects for extraordinary

rendition.

Diego Garcia, an overseas territory of the UK located in the British Indian Ocean, has been

accused of having been a host to “nefarious activities” (Drury and Bates, 2015) such as the

extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). British

government Ministers are, to this day, bound to hide the full truth, though it is known that

terrorist suspects did pass through in transit. More spurious is whether prolonged detention

and interrogation of suspects occurred at Deiego Garcia in purpose built secret prisons

(Milmo, 2015).

Black sites demonstrate two things. Firstly, that the UK and France are merely following the

US model and thus allowing for the deprecation of life, beyond bare life, beyond the

reducing of life to its biological essence, to what Agamben referred to as Muselmann. This

“refers to a figure which occupies the boundaries between life and death, the human and

the inhuman and exists beyond the limits of dignity and self-respect” (Levi and Rothberg,

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2003). The connotations of such contempt for life, and the willingness of European states

such as the UK and France to allow this to occur, will be explored in the final section of this

paper.

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6. Risk management

Characteristics of the state of exception and biopolitical bare life are not confined, however,

to the camp or zones of conflict but the creation of homo sacer is facilitated through

techniques embodied in bureaucracy, of risk management, made possible through laws such

as the Patriot Act in the US and the more recent ‘snooper’s charter’ in the UK, their remit

extending well beyond arenas of conflict due to the nature of the war on terror, having no

front, as explored earlier in the paper. These laws enable techniques of bureaucratic

surveillance, subjecting life to methods of statistical investigation allowing behavioural

patterns to be identified within a given population. Here, subjects are considered a

cumulative of various ‘risk factors’ which may be assuaged by means of incessant

observation.

“[Risk management] is not a question of instituting a regime in which each person is permanently

under the alien gaze of the eye of power exercising individualizing surveillance. It is not a matter

of apprehending and normalizing the offender ex post facto. Conduct is continually monitored

and reshaped by logics immanent within all networks of practice. Surveillance is ‘designed in’ to

the flows of everyday existence.” (Rose, 1999: p.234).

Individuals, then, are reduced to a collective of identities and risk categories. For example,

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) recently “voted in favour of a mass data

collection plan aimed at combating terrorists and organised criminals” (Rankin, 2016)

whereby air passenger name records (PNR) are shared among the EU and three other

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states, namely the US, Canada and Australia – all members of the ‘Five Eyes’ group. Prior to

this vote, the UK was the only EU state to have a ‘fully fledged’ PNR system. However,

“France led attempts to revive the long-stalled PNR plans in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo

shootings, and stepped up its efforts after the attacks in Paris and Brussels.” (ibid.). Data

including name, age, address, passport, credit card number and previous travels are

accumulated, kept for five years and anonymised after six months. During this time,

authorities are able to categorise passengers based on their threat level: “One case cited by

security services is that of a people trafficker who was identified by PNR data because he

made frequent round trips to the same destination, always alone on his outward journey

and always sitting next to a young woman on the return leg.” (ibid.). This is easily applicable

to a terrorist situation in which a suspect is identified due to his travelling habits to one

particular county, for example.

Surveillance in the UK and France is not limited merely to foreigners entering and leaving.

Recent legislation has been passed in the UK, and more is being passed, which enables

Home Office surveillance to permeate through everyday aspects of life. Schools and

academies are required to “pay due regard to the need to prevent pupils and others they

come onto contact with through the delivery of services from being drawn into terrorism.”

(Beatrice Tate School, 2016). The Prevent strategy requires that, “where concerns are

suspected, they must be shared as detailed earlier and details recorded in a confidential

written record stored in a secure locked cabinet. Access to such records is strictly

controlled.” (ibid.). This strategy applies not only to schools but to universities, prisons, local

authorities and NHS trusts (Khaleeli, 2015).

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Another piece of legislation which is currently passing through UK’s parliament is the Draft

Communications Data Bill – more commonly known as the ‘Snooper’s Charter’. Proposed by

the Home Secretary Theresa May, this legislation will grant “powers for the police to access

everyone’s web browsing histories and to hack into phones” (Travis, 2016). This bill

represents an attempt by the Home Office to provide the first framework for state

surveillance in the world (ibid.).

The examples outlined above represent an increasing internalisation of security, an increase

in ‘domestic spying’ and data collection within the UK targeted at UK citizens. ‘Policing

beyond borders’ has also seen an increase with the border being said, by some, to no longer

be at the border. Thus we can see that the ‘front’ of the war on terror is not represented by

one location and does not target any one group: moreover, the war on terror exists

everywhere and it has become impossible to be exempt from surveillance, making everyone

a suspect.

It is important to focus upon the UK and US because of the location of the UK: an island on

the edge of Europe. This location enables the UK to intercept the majority of European

internet traffic to and from the US: important owing to the very large number of internet

companies based in the US. (MacAskill et al, 2013). The UK’s Government Communications

Headquarters (GCHQ) also operates similar surveillance from Akrotiri and Dhekelia, British

overseas territories on the island of Cyprus. Files revealed by Edward Snowden – whistle

blower and ex-employee of the NSA who revealed tens of thousands of secret government

files – show that GCHQ’s US counterpart funded at least one of these surveillance

programmes, a satellite listening station, by fifty percent.

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Though not part of the ‘Five Eyes’ group, France has also passed laws which are not only

comparable, but linked to, the US Patriot Act. The ‘Intelligence Bill’, passed in the wake of

the Charlie Hebdo attacks, “allows the government to monitor phone calls and emails of

terrorism suspects without obtaining a warrant. It also requires internet service providers to

collect metadata, which is then processed by an algorithm to detect strings of suspicious

activity—a page taken right from the NSA’s playbook.” (Pick, 2015). As noted in the quote,

there are unquestionable similarities between the powers granted to the French authorities

in the Intelligence Act and those granted to US authorities through the Patriot Act.

The first terrorist attack on Paris in 2015 happened in January at ‘Charlie Hebdo’, a satirical

magazine, and at a Jewish grocery shop in which 17 people were killed. Following this

attack, a new Bill was introduced, which the French parliament approved, in which new

surveillance powers, including phone and email tapping, were handed to the French

intelligence agencies (Chrisafis, 2015). As in the previous two cases of the UK and US, a

‘knee jerk’ reaction led to legislation being passed which furthered the abilities of the

authorities to spy on their own citizens. Much like the Patriot Act in the US, this Bill allows

the authorities to collect vast amounts of ‘metadata’ indiscriminately, regardless of whether

a person is suspected of terrorism or not. Here we can see a trend emerging across the

countries examined in this paper: one of a heavy increase in, and much further reaching

powers being given to authorities to facilitate, domestic spying. There is no front line on

which terrorism fought, meaning that everyone becomes a suspect and escape from

surveillance becomes an impossibility.

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The uncertainty seen in the US and their war on terror following 9/11 is reflected starkly in

the state of emergency which is now pervasive throughout France. Everyone has become a

suspect and it is now impossible to escape the war on terror in France as it was (is) in the

US. On the 20th of November, following the attacks in Paris, emergency legislation was

passed and refers to “all persons with regards to whom there exist serious reasons to think

that their behaviour constitutes a threat to public order and security” (Agamben, 2015). This

bears a striking resemblance to measures used in the US and their war on terror whereby

surveillance became installed as part of everyday life through the Terrorist Screening Centre

as mentioned earlier. Fear and uncertainty can be seen to operate as an effective mandate

for the war on terror in all three cases studied in this paper.

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7. Implications for liberal democracy: paradoxical relationships

7.1. The camp

“Today politics knows no value other than life…and until the contradictions that this fact implies

are dissolved, Nazism and fascism – which transformed the decision on bare life into the

supreme political principle – will remain stubbornly with us.” (Agamben, 1998: p.10).

Although it is fought on the basis of preserving freedom and democracy (Blair, 2003; Bush,

2005; Cameron, 2015; Hollande, 2015), the war on terror is an unequivocal threat to the

values on which Western states are built. Agamben pointed to Guantanamo Bay specifically

as an instance whereby human rights have suffered violation in the name of preserving

democratic values. Claiming that such violations equate to state-sponsored terrorism,

Agamben asserts that homo sacer has only one choice in such situations and this is

resistance through bare life in order to render the existing power structure flawed and

unworkable.

Resistance has been known to happen at these sites. Hunger strikes have taken place at

Guantanamo Bay from the Bush Administration at the start of the century and still occur

over a decade later. Ziarek (2012) asserts that, “the hunger strike reveals once again three

interrelated aspects of bare life: first, its negative differentiation with respect to the politics

of race and gender; second, its subjection to different forms of violence; and finally, its role

in multiple emancipatory movements”. However, emancipation is not the result of

resistance for Guantanamo detainees. On the contrary, they are force fed and come to

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resemble what Agamben refers to as ‘Muselmann’: one who occupies “a zone of the human

where not only help but also dignity and self-respect have become useless.” (Agambem,

1999: p.63). Parallels can be drawn between Agamben’s theoretical figure and those

attempting hunger strikes in Guantanamo:

“Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay] is not just a prison. It is a warehouse of the forgotten, run

by a military that doesn’t have the faintest idea how to treat the sick souls of people

held without charge for over a dozen years…Abu Wa’el Dhiab is starving himself

because he feels he and other prisoners at Guantánamo have no other choice.”

(Aljazeera, 2015)

The only emancipatory tool available to these people, already stripped of all legal and

political rights, becomes self-starvation and even this they are denied. Unable even to take

their own life should they wish to, Guantanamo detainees have become trapped

somewhere between life and death: denied any sort of decisions regarding their own lives,

dignity and self-respect are non-existent.

On the other hand, last year, 2015, saw the release of a detainee who had staged a nine

year hunger strike (Aljazeera, 2015). This demonstrates that emancipation is forthcoming to

those detained at Guantanamo though the reasons for this emancipation are debateable.

It could be argued that Obama’s pledge to close the facility, following his election to the US

Presidency, in 2008 is the primary reason for this development. Although proving

notoriously difficult to close, 779 detainees have been held at Guantanamo and, of these,

34


689 have been released (Close Guantanamo, 2016). This equates to nearly 90 per cent of

detainees having been released since Obama took office. Some, however, would argue that

this pledge would not have been made had detainees not resisted and instigated objections

from human rights lawyers and campaigners, as well as from the general public.

Ziarek further argues that: “Since bare life is included within Western democracies as their

hidden inner ground…modern politics is about the search for new radicalised and gendered

targets of exclusion for the new living dead“ (2012). This results in these targets multiplying

with ‘astonishing speed’, something which was a characteristic feature of 20th century

democracies which descended into totalitarianism. From this we are able to infer that, as

bare life within a democracy becomes more prevalent and overt, the closer we come to

democracy descending into dictatorship. Concentration camps in Nazi Germany could be

seen to be a manifestation of the dangers which are implicit in Western democracies: “total

genocide made possible by the reversal of the exception signified by homo sacer into a new

thanopolitical norm.” (ibid.). Such dangers are still present in modern Western democracies

as demonstrated in this paper through the case studies of the US, UK and France. As such,

any institutions which deprecate life into bare life should be treated with utmost suspicion

as this marks an aberration from normal democratic society to a state of exception with the

potential for dire consequences.

7.2. Pre-emptive security

35


As can be seen from the clear move by the US, UK and France to a model whereby security

is essentially exported to become pre-emptive and virtual in nature, the exception has

become the rule in dealing with terror. As Schmitt asserted: the exception is inherent in law

as all rules carry with them an exception. The exception with regard to fighting terror

appears to have become the rule owing to the fact that it seems to be common practice to

flout international law. This can be seen, for example by the programme of virtual security

in which the US, UK and France use drone strikes to prevent a threat from emerging as a

concrete danger in the first place.

This virtual security is spurious both for legal and moral reasons. Article 51 of the UN

Charter is often used to justify the use of drone strikes as it allows states the right of self-

defence: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or

collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.”

(Alder, 2012). While airstrikes may indeed a response to an attack, as was the case in the

aftermath of the Paris attacks, the threat present in Syria following these attacks cannot be

said to be a direct one to the security of the UK or France. The nationalities of those who

carried out the attacks, all of them being EU nationals, only serves to make this point more

compelling. Therefore the legal basis for these attacks is limited at best.

In order to consider the ethics of such a model of security, several factors must be taken

into account: whether the intentions are correct and whether there is a just cause; the

chance of success in producing a peaceful outcome; the proportionality of the attack; and

whether a reasonable attempt to avert violence. These considerations are known as the

‘just war doctrine’ and there are political commentators on each side arguing that airstrikes

36


meet the criteria for a just war (Lodge, 2015) and that they are in violation of the doctrine

(Beck, 2015). Due to the constraints of this paper, the scope to explore these arguments is

limited though it must be emphasised that these principles must be considered by states on

a case by case basis.

7.3. Risk management

The primary and most obvious danger posed to democracy by domestic spying is that it

exploits ‘legal loopholes’ and is carried out in secret, as was revealed by the US whistle

blower, Edward Snowden. Shami Chakrabarti, former director of human rights group

Liberty, asserts that such activity amounts to breaking the law: “For years, UK and US

governments broke the law… Without Snowden – and the legal challenges by Liberty and

other campaigners that followed – we wouldn’t have a clue what they were up to.”

(Chakrabarti, 2015). A lack of transparency engenders a lack of accountability: an attribute

which is of utmost importance in a democracy. For the electorate act as representatives of

popular opinion, so should public institutions operate behind closed doors, or through a veil

of smoke and mirrors, they become unable to make decisions with regard to how public

officials should be treated (Center for Civic Education, 2007: p.106).

Many academics assert that there is a limit to the amount of surveillance which a

democracy is able to withstand, the arguments of which I will set out below, together with

an attempt to balance these with arguments for surveillance being a necessary feature in

order to protect democracy.

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Less obvious but equally, if not more, worrisome connotations for democracy present

themselves when we consider the effects of constant surveillance upon the person: effects

which are comparable to those of the ‘panopticon’ designed by Bentham in the late 18th

century. The panopticon was a prison design (see appendix 2), enabling a single guard to

view all prisoners. Although constrained to only view one prisoner at a time, the prisoners,

unable to see the guard, in theory, begin to regulate and normalise their own behaviour.

Bloustein makes the argument that “The man who is compelled to live every minute of his life

among others and whose every need, thought, desire, fancy, or gratification is subject to public

scrutiny, has been deprived of his individuality and human dignity.” (1964). He argues that a lack

of privacy engenders ‘normalised’ behaviour – behaviour which is in accordance to societal

norms. Mass collection of data of a state’s own citizens clearly marks a departure from

classical notions of sovereignty to ‘biopolitics’, as described in an earlier section, and “total

population control” as William Binney claimed was the ultimate goal of the NSA

(Loewenstein, 2014). From this we are able to infer that, based on previous evidence which

this paper has presented, that the UK and France are in line with US thinking. This is a

precedent which carries with it implicit risks to democracy.

Moreover, ‘total population control’ poses a threat to the ability of individual citizens to

develop the self and to construct and control their social identities (Goold, 2010). From the

view of a proponent of liberal democracy, this is a fundamental threat to the right of

individuals to exercise individual autonomy: to determine and pursue their own conceptions

of ‘the good life’. To quote J.S. Mill, a staunch proponent of personal liberty: “The only

freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so

38


long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

(1869).

Mill suggests that there are limits to freedom should we attempt to deprive others of theirs.

In the context of surveillance we can assume that some surveillance, according to Mill,

would be necessary in order to ensure the protection of this right for personal freedoms not

to be interfered with. Though as previously mentioned, surveillance can alter behaviour to

the point where it in itself interferes with the right for personal freedom to be absolute,

suggesting that there is a delicate balance between too little and too much surveillance. We

can infer that Mill would suggest that a system of absolute surveillance, as we are currently

experiencing, crosses the line of too much surveillance, owing to the effects this has on

peoples’ behaviour as presented above.

Another implication which must be considered is that biopolitics needs to be treated with

caution as it contains within it the potential to descend into thanatopolitics as with dangers

inherent in the camp as demonstrated previously. With regard to mass collection of public

data, this shift is already distorted. The NSA and GCHQ purport to be collecting peoples’

data in order to tackle terrorism by searching for ‘key terms’ including subjects, phone

numbers and email addresses: 40,000 terms used by GCHQ, 31,000 used by the NSA

(MacAskill et al, 2013). On one hand, this results in the controlling and normalising of

behaviour, as previously mentioned. However, we could consider this an inadvertent effect

of the true intention: to determine who constitutes a threat and therefore, who to remove

from society. Suspected terrorists are not merely removed from society as prisoners though,

but as homo sacer as demonstrated throughout this essay. There we see that biopolitics and

39


thanatopolitics is already blurred. This blurring does not necessarily come at the detriment

of democracy alone however, since traditional notions of sovereignty are based upon the

ability of the sovereign to take life.

40


8. Conclusion

Following Agamben’s thinking in his writings, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life

and The State of Exception, as well as with references to Schmitt and Foucault, this paper

has put forward the argument that the state of exception, the sovereign ban and the

production of bare life are central theories in understanding the war on terror. The

precedent created by the United States following 9/11 was one of placing a heavy emphasis

on prevention, thus institutionalising the state of exception as a permanent aspect of the

Western global order as we can infer from states such as the UK and France followed this

model. While it must be noted that further study is required in order to generalise this

research to other European and Western states, this is difficult owing to the relative rarity of

terrorist attacks upon Western states.

Furthermore, sovereignty in the West is now constituted in a Schmittian sense in that bare

life is created by, and is subject to, technological processes which are embedded in

bureaucracy such as risk identification as well as administration and assessment. Prevention

cannot work as a system if used by the United States alone, necessitating a global system of

social control. This has been demonstrated in this paper with reference to the UK and

France. Further research is required in order to determine if this is more far reaching than

just these two European countries: it is not possible to generalise such a limited study to the

rest of Europe let alone the further West. The prevention of terrorism by governments

inevitably blurs boundaries between binary opposites such as inside/outside,

domestic/international, war/peace and so is best understood with reference to these

distorted boundaries.

41


The war on terror is not concerned with the production of something good – such as the

pursuit of a utopian society – but rather to suppress fear by creating ever better

technologies to identify risks before they emerge as concrete threats to security: moving a

concrete danger ever further away.

The war on terror is being fought across the West in the name of protecting freedom and

democracy while in actual fact posing a threat to both. Risk management places individuals

and groups into categories thus affecting the choices and chances of peoples’ everyday lives.

Both France and the UK have chosen to ignore many criticisms of the Bush administration

and have instead followed the precedent created in the aftermath of 9/11. Knee jerk

reactions continue to dictate our security policies to the detriment of the liberal democratic

principles on which the West claims to be built. To quote Agamben: “A state which has

security as its sole task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism: it can always be

provoked by terrorism to become itself terroristic.” (Agamben, 2001).

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Appendices

Appendix 1:

Homo sacer is Latin for ‘sacred man’ and refers to a figure of Roman times. Committed of a

crime, this individual would be stripped of all legal and political rights and banished from

living in cities of Roman citizens. Although the law prevented the state from killing this

figure, any person to do so would be exempt from punishment.

The terms ‘bare life’ and ‘homo sacer’ refer to the same figure and are thus

interchangeable.

Appendix 2:

A depiction of Bentham’s panopticon, demonstrating how the prison guard, in the centre, is

able to view all prisoners, though the prisoners themselves are not able to see who the

guard is observing at any one time.

43


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