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    http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/37/1/11The online version of this article can be found at:

    DOI: 10.1177/0967010606064134

    2006 37: 11Security DialogueJef Huysmans

    International Politics of Insecurity: Normativity, Inwardness and the Exception

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    International Politics of Insecurity:

    Normativity, Inwardness and the Exception

    JEF HUYSMANS*

    Department of Politics and International Studies,The Open University, UK

    This article seeks (a) to show the complexities of the concept of excep-tion in international politics, (b) to suggest that the current politicsof insecurity are not limited to a clash over the status and limits ofnormativity in international politics, and (c) to introduce conceptualgroundwork for theorizing international politics of insecurity as acontest of the exception. By combining normative and existentialconcepts of exception, a conceptual matrix is introduced that distin-guishes between political liberalism and realism, on the one hand,and anti-diplomatic ultrapolitical realism and liberalism, on the other.While the focus in discussions of exception is often on the tensionbetween realist assertions of the limited validity of international

    norms and liberal assertions of the real capacity of internationalnorms to constrain political power, something more complex may begoing on in current international politics of insecurity. The conceptualmatrix draws attention to an additional tension between those realistsand liberals willing to retain common grounds for symbolic media-tion in international politics and those seeking to intensify anti-diplomatic inwardness.

    Keywords Insecurity exception 9/11 international law existentialism

    THERE IS GENERALLY a feeling that the acts of violence of 11September 2001 in the USA created exceptional times in internationalpolitics. Claims of exceptionality feature prominently in the interna-

    tional politics of insecurity. They can take the form of millennial statements:

    In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events ofSeptember 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers ofthe future and assess the choices facing humankind. (Blair, 2001)

    Special Section: Theorizing the Liberty-Security Relation:

    Sovereignty, Liberalism and Exceptionalism

    2006 PRIO, www.prio.noSAGE Publications, http://sdi.sagepub.com

    Vol. 37(1): 1129, DOI: 10.1177/0967010606064134

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    But, they also take the form of questions about the relevance of internationallaw, the legitimacy of torture, justification for pre-emptive use of militaryforce, the rise of US unilateralism, a crisis of the United Nations, etc.

    Understanding what exceptionality refers to in international politics is aninroad into understanding the terms of the politics of insecurity today. Thisarticle starts from the assumption that what makes political time exceptionalis not the expansion of transnational forms of violence as such but theirpoliticization as exceptions. The key questions then become: What do claimsof exceptionality do politically? How do they structure the stakes and posi-tions in international struggles for legitimacy and authority?

    In this article, I deal with these questions by playing a conceptual analysisof exception into current debates in international security politics. I con-clude that claims of exception can structure the international politics of

    insecurity in terms of two cross-cutting cleavages. The first is a normativecleavage that draws a rift between realists and liberals on the basis oftheir different understanding of the status and limits of norms in inter-national politics. The second is an existential cleavage that defines differ-ences within both realism and liberalism on the basis of the degree to whichexceptional politics retain a common ground for symbolic mediation ininternational relations and the degree to which they become anti-diplomaticand inward-looking. The result is a 22 matrix defining the tensions aroundwhich claims of exceptionality implicitly or explicitly organize international

    security policies.While political and academic debates on 9/11 are most explicitly phrasedwithin the normative problematic of exception (first cleavage), the concep-tual matrix makes visible the possibility that the normative debate is onlyone aspect of a more complex international politics of insecurity today. Thematrix introduces the question whether the struggle between those assertinginternational law and multilateralism and those supporting unilateralismis not overdetermined by an existential rift that distinguishes realists andliberals who wish to retain a common ground for symbolic interaction fromthose realists and liberals who turn to inward-looking ultrapolitics that sub-

    stitute anti-diplomacy and divine law for diplomacy and positive norms.

    The Limits of Normative Order

    One of the debates that immediately followed the acts of violence in the USAon 11 September 2001 turned on whether those events represented an act ofwar or a crime. This contest of definitions of the nature of violence was not

    simply about finding the adequate analytical label for the violence. Thedebate was important because it directly bore upon the normative order

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    within which the policy response would be framed and which would pro-vide the normative yardstick for evaluating the legitimacy of counter-measures.

    From a lawyers perspective, one of the reasons for the debate was that theform of violence did not fit easily into existing categories of internationallaw:

    To some observers, the attack can only be regarded as an entirely new phenomenonfalling wholly outside the existing framework of international law with its emphasis on(horizontal) relations between states and (vertical) relations between state and individ-ual. For the members of that school of thought, a challenge on this scale by a non-stateactor to the one superpower calls for entirely new thinking about the nature of inter-national law. (Greenwood, 2002: 301)

    Others resist the temptation to radically throw existing frameworks over-

    board:

    The fact that the events of 11 September may demonstrate a need to re-examine some ofthe assumptions on which the international legal order rests does not mean that thoseevents occurred in a legal vacuum. (Greenwood, 2002: 301)1

    In the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, this contest ofthe relevant normative frameworks and the limits of these frameworksturned explicitly into a challenge to one of the cornerstones of the post-World War II international normative security order: the multilateral, collec-tive security system as institutionalized by the UN.2 At the heart of thisdebate was the question whether or not the war could be justified on the

    basis of UN Security Council resolutions, the UN Charter and doctrines ofinternational law more generally. To the extent that this was possible and,above all, if the reasoning was acceptable for the Security Council thepolitical decision to go to war remained within the limits of the normativesecurity order. In that case, one would not have to invoke exceptionality.

    Kofi Annans (2003) address to the general assembly on 23 September 2003made it clear, however, that the war in Iraq moved the contest beyond thequestion of the legality or legitimacy of the war:

    We have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945itself, when the United Nations was founded. . . . Now we must decide whether it ispossible to continue on the basis agreed then, or whether radical changes are needed.And we must not shy away from questions about the adequacy, and effectiveness, of therules and instruments at our disposal.

    By suggesting that there may be a rationale for institutionalizing a new secu-rity order, Annan accepts that the validity of the normative security orderitself is severely contested (Rieff, 2003). By implication, the question of thelegitimacy of international political power in the security realm moves from

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 13

    1 See also, for example, Roberts (2003).2 See, for example, de la Gorce (2003); Dunne (2003); Glennon (2003); Roberts (2003); Slocombe (2003).

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    a normatively constituted political power that is subjected to accepted andcodified norms to the legitimacy of constituting political power that is creat-ing a new normative security order. The international order finds itself in a

    legal interregnum, a constitutional moment when the old order is dead andthe new not yet born (Ackerman, 1989, 1991).So far, we have identified two interpretations of the exceptionality of the

    situation triggered by 9/11. The first interpretation focuses on the degree towhich organized violence falls beyond the reach of existing normativeinstruments and thus justifies exceptional policies, though the latter cannotradically challenge the existing legal and multilateral security order. Oneof the most visible and extreme sites in which this view is played out anddebated is the status of the prisoners at Camp Delta in Guantnamo Bay.

    The second interpretation is more radical. Contemporary international

    politics is exceptional because the violence of 9/11 is an indication of a radi-cal change in the global security landscape. The question is no longerwhether the policy response to 9/11 can be contained within the existingnormative security order but whether this order has any validity left. Thisinterpretation suggests that international political power currently operatesin a normative interregnum in which the old order is no longer valid and anew order is not yet born.

    Claims of exceptionality in international politics thus open a divisionbetween the constituted nature of international political power (first inter-

    pretation) and the legitimacy of claiming constituting international politicalpower (second interpretation). This is the traditional rift that concepts of theexception in political and constitutional theory refer to.

    In international politics, this traditional distinction between constitutedand constituting authority is further complicated by a third interpretation ofthe concept of exception that stresses that this distinction is irrelevant forinternational politics. What if the legitimacy crisis of the United Nations andthe multilateral security order is not really a crisis but simply a confirmationthat normative security orders are an illusion or a fig leaf in internationalpolitics?

    The argument goes as follows: After 1989 and the collapse of the SovietUnion, people started believing that international politics had finally reachedthe stage in which the multilateral security order could properly function.On 11 September 2001, this illusion was fundamentally crushed, andWestern political elites have been brought back to the reality of internationalpolitics. This interpretation assumes that international politics is by defini-tion exceptional. The international system is an order without a politicallyrelevant normative content; it is systemic rather than normative. To useMartin Wights (1966: 33) famous words:

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    Political theory and law are maps of experience or systems of action within the realm ofnormal relationships and calculable results. They are the theory of the good life.International theory is the theory of survival. What for political theory is the extremecase (as revolution, or civil war) is for international theory the regular case.

    A similar point was made less dichotomously by Morgenthau (1933) in hisearly work on the relation between international law and international poli-tics. Morgenthau argued that there is of course international law, but there isno judicial system of rules that makes it possible to decide on legal groundswhen litigation is judicial litigation that is, when litigation has to be sub-

    jected to judicial rules. Therefore, the criterion of legality as a restraint onpolitical power is severely limited in international relations.

    Claiming this form of exceptionality helps to legitimate a form of decision-ism in international relations. Decisionism is the legal theory of the authori-

    tarian state: law becomes a technical instrument for the execution of certainpolitical objectives; it is nothing but the command of the ruler; it is a meansfor serving the stabilization of power (Neumann [1937] 1996: 134). In a com-ment on the foreign policy of the USA, former UN secretary-general BoutrosBoutros-Ghali seems to come close to understanding US foreign policy alongthese lines:

    Multilateralism and unilateralism are just methods for the United States: They use them la carte, as it suits them. The United Nations is just an instrument at the service of theAmerican policy. They will use it when they need to, through a multilateral approach,and if they dont need it, they will act outside the framework of the United Nations. (deChtel, 2003)

    If the political significance of international norms is this severely limited, thedistinction between constituted and constituting power does not make sensein international politics. All international politics are by definition excep-tional, and therefore the concept does not allow for discriminating betweendifferent international times. At most, one can state that 9/11 and the policyresponses to it have confirmed the exceptional nature of internationalpolitics. There is no fork in the road, because the very road that is, thenormative road that Kofi Annan talks about is an illusion.

    Such claims of the exceptionality of international politics move the debateaway from the question of what kind of international normative securityorder can be an effective and acceptable answer to current forms of inter-national violence. Instead, they draw the debate into the question whetherinternational normative criteria have any relevance at all in internationalsecurity politics. They structure the struggle for international legitimacy andpolitical authority into a rift between the legitimacy of normatively un-restrained use of violence and political authority, on the one hand, and therestraining capacity of international norms (law and its sociological variant,

    multilateral institutional arrangements) and their legitimacy, on the other.

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 15

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    The political significance of these third claims of exceptionality depends ontheir capacity to move international politics into this rift and thus to struc-ture the political contest into an extremely intense struggle over the status of

    international norms.The claims of exceptionality that I have looked at so far draw on normativeconcepts of exception. They share a concern with the limits and status ofinternational law and multilateral norms in international security politics.They either contest the relevance (i.e. status) of international norms or theycontest when and how political power can legitimately transgress the exist-ing normative order.

    When these conflicting claims of what exceptionality means are played outintensively in international politics, as they are in the wake of 9/11, it is thecleavage between the first two temporary suspension of norms and consti-

    tutional interregnum and the third interpretation irrelevance of norms ininternational politics that plays out most radically. When the third claim isused effectively it opens up a radical rift between realist and liberal under-standings of legitimate international authority and the legitimate use ofviolence in international politics.

    The difference between realists and liberals in international security politicsdoes not rest on a different understanding of the political that is, the con-cept that frames what political practice is. Both agree that political practiceemerges, domestically and internationally, from the tension between law

    and the arbitrary exercise of state power and violence. The distinction is oneof the politics through which one restrains the arbitrary use of violence andstate power. For liberals, international law and its sociological variant, insti-tutionalized multilateralism, are the instruments of restraint. The realistsagree that this is indeed the case domestically, but not in the internationalsphere. International politics differs fundamentally from domestic politicsfor realists because restraint of political power and violence cannot begrounded in law and multilateral norms. The realist position is not one ofasserting unrestrained use of violence in international politics, however(Williams, 2005). Realists believe that international law and multilateral

    security orders play at most a very limited role in restraining internationalpolitical authority, but this does not imply that they do not seek to constrainthe arbitrary use of violence. Since restraint cannot be effectively obtainedthrough law and multilateral order, the question has to be how internationalpolitics can be restrained politically rather than normatively or, morespecifically, legally. It is here that the balance of power arises as an instru-ment of constraining the arbitrary use of violence.

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    half of the 20th century. This interest in authenticity was also present in theinvention of the psychoanalytical understandings of the subject, the Marxistcritique of capitalism and the conservative critique of the decadence of

    modern Western civilization. One of the things these diverse intellectual per-spectives had in common was the belief that modern cultural, economic,social and political processes increasingly suppressed authentic forms of lifeand subjectivity. Modern individuals were understood to be increasinglyalienated because of the domination of objective forms, such as money, tech-nologies and positive law, and instrumental rationality. In these conditions,subjects and society could only recover their true, natural or original beingin exceptional circumstances that radically disrupted the instrumentalrationality, objective forms and everyday routine through which modernsocieties sustained the suppression of authentic life.4

    Heideggers notion of life as being-unto-death is a good example. Life isdefined in the shadow of death, but this is seen as an opportunity rather thansomething negative. It starts from a trivial observation: human beings die.But, death is much more than an inevitable event for this existentialism: it isthe portal to authentic life.5 When the possibility of death radicalizes, anexistential crisis is created that can help subjects to break free from everydayroutine and the iron cage of instrumental rationality and thus facilitatesaccess to a more authentic definition of ones life. The intensification of thepossibility of death does not refer to a subject who is dying. Rather, it refers

    to an intensified confrontation with human mortality and with the freedomof human beings to create their own identity and world. It does not refer toa potentiality of death becoming actuality but to the extreme accomplish-ment of . . . an already real and already present possibility (Derrida, 1997:124). It is the experience of the possibility of death itself that radicalizes.

    War was one of the favourite examples (Coker, 1994). For soldiers engagedwith the enemy, the rules and habits that constrained them in everydaylife could suddenly emerge as futile. This falling away of normality coulddisclose a truly new perspective on their life. It stripped away the artificiallayers of identity and revealed a more original and contingent condition

    from which people, if they wanted to and were strong enough, could definetheir lives afresh. This authentic moment was seen as being one of freedomin which the historical determination and consciousness of the subjects isdestroyed and they become free to create their own destiny ex nihilo(Adorno, [1964] 1973; Lwith, 1993).6

    This form of existential authenticity is contingent upon an inward turn(Villa, 1996: 130; Wolin, 2001: 81). The authentic subjects exist solely by them-

    18 Security Dialogue vol. 37, no. 1, March 2006

    4 See, for example, Morris-Reich (2002).5 For an excellent discussion of the significance of death in the definition of modern subjectivity and socie-

    ty, see Bauman (1992).6 This view shares the Baroque notion of history as a plane upon which anything can happen but nothing can

    be finally decided (Weber, 1992: 1415).

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    selves. Their social networks (e.g. family, employeeemployer relations, etc.)and historical conditions (e.g. concepts of morality, the dominance of instru-mental relations, the distribution of capital) no longer bear upon their

    identity. To be able to recreate themselves under conditions of rationaliza-tion and objectification of life, subjects needed to be radically thrown uponthemselves. In the jargon of authenticity, subjectivity . . . is sought in theabsolute disposal of the individual over himself, without regard to the factthat he is caught in a determining objectivity (Adorno, [1964] 1973: 105).

    This is a radical individualist notion of subjectivity. From a political per-spective, this concept of subjectivity is problematic. How can these subjectscome together into an authentic political community if the precondition fortheir authenticity is to distance themselves from social and historical bonds?One of the answers is that political existentialism requires a historical deci-

    sion in favour of the cultural unity and the national destiny of a people. Thisdecision sublimates individual authenticity into an authentic expression ofcollective cultural identity. It establishes a transition of the existential con-cept of subjectivity from an individual to a collective standpoint (Neumann,[1944] 1967: 136; Wolin, 2001: 87):

    Heidegger had treated the whole framework of Being and Time without any obviouschange up to 1933. Then he suddenly gave it a collectivist turn: Dasein was no longerthis poor KierkegaardianSartrean individual hanging in the air, in Sorge. But nowDasein was the Dasein of the people, of the Volk. (Habermas, 1986: 189)

    It is important to emphasize that this collective turn does not aim to create apublic space in which authentic individuals come together and deliberateabout their historical destiny. It refers to a simple assertion of an organic totalunity in which individual subjectivity transmutes into a higher collectivepolitical subjectivity. Institutions, objectified symbolic frameworks and socialnetworks are assumed to be cut away for a mere assertion of an authenticorganic collective identity and newly invented historical destiny. Of course,sociologically, these communities do not work like this. But, what matters isthat apocalyptic visions of the world combined with radical assertions of

    authentic identity can slip into a political self-understanding that turnsinward in this particularly radical way.

    What is the condition that can trigger such a radical assertion of unity?What is the exceptional crisis through which the authentic identity of a politi-cal community can be disclosed? One of the paradigmatic existentialistanswers, which is captured very well in Carl Schmitts work, is war:7

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 19

    7 For me, Schmitt, especially in Political Theology and The Concept of The Political, binds the normative conceptof exception to a philosophy of concrete life that is homologous to some forms of existentialism. For moredetailed arguments supporting this view, see Bourdieu ([1988] 1991); Lwith (1993); McCormick (1997:8385); Sartori (1989); Wolin (1990, 1992).

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    It is not by chance if one finds in Carl Schmitt a political decisionism that correspondsto Heideggers existentialist philosophy, in which the potentiality-for-Being-a-wholeof individual authentic existence is transposed to the totality of the authentic state,which is itself always particular. Corresponding to the preservation and affirmation of

    this authentic Dasein [in Heidegger] is the affirmation of political existence [inSchmitt]; to freedom for death [in Heidegger], the sacrifice of life in the politicallyparamount case of war [in Schmitt]. (Lwith, 1993: 174)

    For Schmitt, the intensification of the possibility of war is the exemplaryexistential condition that makes the authentic disclosure of political practicepossible. Authentic revelation of political identity depends on a historicaldecision that sharply distinguishes between friends and an existential enemywho has the capacity to physically kill:

    For as long as the people exists in the political sphere, this people must, even if only in

    the most extreme case and whether this point has been reached has to be decided byit determine by itself the distinction of friend and enemy. Therein resides the essenceof its political existence. When it no longer possesses the capacity or the will to makethis distinction, it ceases to exist politically. (Schmitt, [1932] 1996: 49)

    This understanding of the political defines it in terms of a politics-unto-war,which functions as the political equivalent of existentialist being-unto-death.It reverses the Clausewitzian dictum that war is the continuation of politics

    by other means (Von Clausewitz, 1976). In politics-unto-war, war is not con-ditional upon politics but it becomes itself the condition for authentic politi-cal practice and identity. This reversal is important, because it eliminates theinstrumental restraint upon violence that Clausewitzs dictum implies. ForClausewitz, war should be restrained by its politically defined objective. Inthe existentialist notion, the extremity of war, the inherent possibility of totaldestruction, is incorporated in the definition of political practice. The threatof physical destruction that is, the extreme outcome of an unlimited war strips the relation between friends and enemies of normative, instrumentaland historical ties, reducing it to a question of physical existence (Schmitt,[1932] 1996: 4849). As a result, the political community becomes detachedfrom the normative and institutional frameworks defining the international

    society. The community has to derive its strength to survive from itself. Thedecision to embrace this condition makes the political community authenticin a Heideggerian sense. It shows a willingness to put [itself] at risk in theopening of new possibilities, the willingness to abandon the security andtranquillity of the ground provided by everydayness (Villa, 1996: 133).

    Politics-unto-war thus makes the spectre of total war the very condition forauthentic political practice. This spectre radicalizes the tension betweenfriend and enemy by cutting away any normative, moral or instrumentalcommon ground upon which they could negotiate their differences. Political

    interaction between them is reduced to a physical confrontation in which themere existence of the political community becomes the sole value of political

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    interaction. Might becomes right (Neumann, [1944] 1967: 135). Homologousto the inward turn of the authentic existential subject, the authentic politicalcommunity is thrown upon itself. Objectified frameworks, such as inter-

    national law, multilateral security frameworks and institutional networksbased on costbenefit calculations, that are the condition for interactingsymbolically rather than purely physically with others, disappear in theradical intensification of the tension between friends and enemies. In linewith Zizeks (1999: 29) reading of Schmitt, we can call this inward turn to theexistential facticity of politics ultrapolitics.8

    Such an inward turn does not necessarily (at least not conceptually neces-sarily) have to result in a factual waging of global war. In principle, it can alsoresult in autarkic security policy in which a nation tries to become fully self-sufficient and isolate itself from the rest of the world that is, radically reduce

    its vulnerability and dependence upon the external environment. However,the real political model in whose shadow the concept of ultrapolitics and theintensification of political inwardness is developed is the rise of fascism ininterwar Germany. Fascism in Germany did not assert its historical destinythrough isolating Germany but projected its assertion globally. What makesthe intensification of inwardness in identity politics so disturbing for theinternational system is not simply that it cuts away common ground forsymbolic interaction but that it links its ultrapolitics to a global projection ofits identity. In other words, these policies are problematic and ferociously

    aggressive because they can turn to a politics-unto-war that not only eatsaway common ground for symbolic mediation but also tries to impose itsown ideological, spiritual, cultural or racial superiority globally.

    This most radical form of political articulation in the framework of theexistential exception is not simply driven by existential crises and collectiveidentification but also by a desire to overcome all estrangement that is, thefact that we have to live with others who are not like us either by eliminat-ing or radically marginalizing those who are different or by turning thosewho are different into the same as us. James Der Derians concept of anti-diplomacy captures this form of identity politics well: the purpose of diplo-

    macy is to mediate estranged relations; anti-diplomacys aim is to transcendall estranged relations (Der Derian, 1987: 136).

    The anti-diplomatic nature of the politics-unto-war adds to the concept ofultrapolitics that politics-unto-war does not have to be limited to an inwardturn that results merely in asserting ones existence from within the com-munity. It also implies an external projection or assertion of ones ownhistorical destiny in the extremely tense relation with the enemies. Bydestroying the possibility for symbolic mediation, ultrapolitics operatesunder the shadow of a drive to destroy enemies and gain absolute victory as

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 21

    8 Zizek borrows the concept of ultrapolitics from Rancire (1995).

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    an integral part of realizing ones historical destiny. In this case, the inwardturn slips into a politics that tries to overcome estrangement through theassertion of ones way of life globally. In his study of war and modern con-

    sciousness, Coker (1994: 27) seems to extend this inward turn and its link toaggression into a characteristic of Western modern consciousness in the 20thcentury: the modern age was intrinsically aggressive because it was self-referential and therefore self-validating. Without history there could be noself-conscious life.

    The notion of exceptionality that emerges here is one that does not simplyemphasize the suspension or limited status of norms but one that intensifiesan inward turn of the political subject. The possibility for such an inward turndevelops out of an intensification of the possibility of war. This radicalizationof the inimical relation between a political community and its enemies

    challenges the legitimacy of common grounds for symbolic interaction inwhich political identity is defined within established intersubjective frame-works that constrain the exercise of political power, such as international lawand multilateral security frameworks. It is replaced by a physical assertion ofones identity and destiny irrespective of the symbolic claims of others. Thelimits to ones interaction are reduced to physical limits, such as militaryoverstretch. Denying the relevance of positive law or other institutionalizednorms defining what is right and wrong can be one element of this. But, theinward turn goes much further. It implies that claims of exceptionality define

    authentic political authority and legitimacy through a heroic confrontationwith ones groundlessness and mortality (Villa, 1996: 130). We are alone.We have to look after ourselves. The intensification of inwardness that isparticularly problematic in this context is an anti-diplomatic inwardness.Anti-diplomacy is a practice by which one seeks to transcend politicalestrangement by constructing the world into a mirror image of oneself. Anexample of policies in the wake of 9/11 that may be indications of such anti-diplomatic visions of the world is a foreign policy that links assertions ofan apocalyptic era with a policy of aggressively democratizing the worldthrough unilateral military intervention and that substitutes a universal

    assertion of moral values for institutional deliberation.This political concept of inwardness defines the exception in the first

    instance on the basis of a break with or in the normal everydayness of poli-tics, characterized by objectified forms of mediating relations with others,rather than a collapse of norms. The politics of security are in this case notfirst of all judicial but indeed existential.

    22 Security Dialogue vol. 37, no. 1, March 2006

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    Towards a Topology of the International Politics ofInsecurity: The Relation Between Normative and

    Existential Concepts of Exception

    The existential concept of exception belongs to a particular historical andcultural setting: in my reading, mainly interwar Germany and the postwarcritique of German existentialist thinking. The Schmittean politics-unto-warwas an intervention in political debates about the Weimar Republic and thesettlements after World War I. And, like Heideggers philosophy, it wasembedded in a cultural critique of liberal civilization, a cultural flirting withdeath as a creative force, a philosophical critique of the domination of tech-nology, etc. The current debate about security policies and the conditions of

    international (in)security in the West is taking place in a very differenthistorical and cultural setting: a post-colonial world in which the ideologicaland normative frameworks of the Cold War have collapsed; a cultural dis-position that does not embrace death but is obsessed with postponingand controlling it; an embracing of technological progress and a doctrinalassertion of the values of liberalism. Therefore, one has to be careful not touncritically import the full cultural and historical baggage that comes withthe existential concept of exception into the current politics of insecurity.However, I think the existentialist interpretation is important to draw out an

    important stake in contemporary debates about international insecurity.It sharply exposes how, if authentic political identity is expressed throughapocalyptic visions of the world, these may facilitate an inward turn that willchallenge the legitimacy of institutionalized common grounds for symbolicinteraction, such as diplomatic relations, institutions like the United Nations,and international legal and quasi-legal frameworks. The existential conceptof exception thus raises an important question for the international politicsof security: to what extent does binding claims of exceptionality to disclosingauthentic political identity intensify a political inward turn that shifts thetension between law and politics, which is central to how politics is defined

    in normative claims of exceptionality, to an assertion of a politics-unto-warthat implies a collapse of institutionalized frameworks for symbolic inter-action, leaving only the simple, and often brutal, facticity of being alive?

    But, what is special about this? Is this understanding of exceptionality thatdifferent from the normative concept of exception? Is the rift between real-ism and liberalism, which the normative exception opens, not precisely thefracture between an assertion of common grounds for symbolic interactionand the simple political assertion of ones own might and collective identitywithout regard for the institutional and historical frameworks? Looked at in

    these terms, the existentialist interpretation does not seem to contributemuch to the normative understanding of international politics of exception.

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 23

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    Claims of exceptionality help to undermine the legitimacy of law and multi-lateral norms, or at least emphasize their limits. In so doing, they weaken theexisting common ground for symbolic international politics, of which inter-national law and multilateral norms are a central part. Should we thereforeconclude that the existential concept is simply a more general formulation ofthe specific problem that the normative concept refers to? I would suggestnot. The two concepts of exception are not two layers, with the existentialconcept the more general basic layer and the normative concept being a spe-

    cific manifestation of it (as represented in Figure 1). Instead, the two conceptsdefine two cross-cutting axes resulting in a matrix that identifies multiplevariations of international politics of insecurity on the basis of a particularmix of existential and normative claims of exceptionality (as represented inFigure 2). The matrix replaces the layered structure based on a generaland specific concept with multiple tensions of equal generality that arisewhen claims of exceptionality structure the political contest of internationalsecurity.

    This topological shift from layers to matrix is important. It shows that thelayered interpretation hides that claims of exceptionality do not just intensify

    the traditional rift between realist and liberal politics but also open up acleavage within both of them between an ultrapolitical form of realism andliberalism and a political form of realism and liberalism that seeks commongrounds for symbolical mediation of conflict.

    In Figure 2, the positions located in Quadrant 1 assert that international lawand multilateral normative arrangements have only a limited impact onrestraining arbitrary exercise of political power. For them, internationalpolitics is by definition exceptional in a normative sense. That means thatquite radical expressions of power politics beyond normative restraints can

    be easily legitimated, especially when the survival of a political unit isat stake. But, an exercise of realist power politics in these terms does not

    24 Security Dialogue vol. 37, no. 1, March 2006

    Figure 1. Layered Representation of Concepts of Exception

    Realism LiberalismSpecific layer:

    normative concept of exception

    | Interregnum Suspension

    | |

    | |

    Intensification of Sustaining common ground for General layer:

    ultrapolitical inwardness symbolic interaction existential concept of exception

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    necessarily slip into an intensification of anti-diplomatic inwardness orinternational ultrapolitics. Both shared moral and cultural dispositions andinstrumental calculation and bargaining can retain common grounds forsymbolic interaction. Realist power politics can argue for retaining forumsthat facilitate symbolic engagement and practices that remain predisposedtowards diplomacy. In contrast to anti-diplomatic practice that seeks to over-come difference, diplomacy seeks to symbolically mediate it. There is thusan important difference within realist renderings of exceptional politicsaccording to the degree to which common grounds for symbolic mediationare retained in international politics. I have labelled the difference as one

    between diplomatic realism and ultrapolitical realism. The latter (Quadrant3) represents a politics of breaking down the institutional and symbolic con-ditions that provide common ground for symbolic mediation that is driven

    by a predisposition towards overcoming all estrangement. It aims at turningthe world into an image of oneself. Such a vision of the world justifies an

    extremely aggressive security policy that seeks to secure the political com-munity by deleting difference and thus the need for its diplomatic mediation.

    Political positions in Quadrant 2 emphasize that exceptional politics maybe required under certain circumstances but that they do not question theimportant status of normativity in international politics. They recognize thatthe normative order has its limits, that it might need changing, and thatemergency measures that operate beyond the normative order can be justi-fied for security reasons. These positions try to bind exceptional policiesstrongly to the normative framework by limiting their scope and time and byrendering them as an affirmation of the validity of normative order. I havecalled this position normative liberalism.

    Jef Huysmans Insecurity and the Exception 25

    Figure 2. Politics of Insecurity Normative and Existential Axes of Exception

    Normative Axis

    Realism Liberalism

    Retaining common (1) Diplomatic Realism (2a) Normative (2b) Normative

    ground for symbolic liberalism 1: liberalism 2:

    mediation interregnum between temporary suspension

    Existential normative orders of norms

    Axis

    Intensifying (3) Ultrapolitical realism: (4) Ultrapolitical liberalism:

    political asserting physical asserting Divine Law

    inwardness existence and historical

    superiority

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    The political position in Quadrant 4 is the most difficult to explain, becauseit combines an assertion of a normative order with cutting off commonground for symbolic interaction. Is this position possible? Does the norma-

    tive order not provide by definition a common ground for symbolic media-tion? I think this fourth position, which I labelled ultrapolitical liberalism, isconceptually possible and, more importantly, seems to be a particularlypowerful strand in the Western debate about international politics after theend of the Cold War. I cannot sufficiently argue the latter in the space of thisarticle, but let me try to explain how international politics can combine anexistential concept of exception with an articulation of international law.This position recognizes the existence and importance of an institutionalizedinternational normative order in international politics. In other words, itrecognizes the value of law and multilateral arrangements in international

    relations. However, it understands law and other normative arrangementsfirst of all as institutionalizations of universal substantive values rather thanas a procedural framework that offers common ground for internationalsymbolic interaction through which values can be negotiated and institu-tionalized. Ultrapolitical liberalism turns law and norms into a universalethics. It shifts from a modern concept of law that mediates the difference

    between facts and norms through procedures that structure a commonground for debate to a notion of divine law that asserts and imposes uni-versal values by divine representatives that claim a moral or civilizational

    high ground. At that point, the assertion of law becomes exceptional in theexistential sense. It turns inward and anti-diplomatic. It asserts a particularauthentic spiritual identity globally for the purpose of overcoming competi-tion between moral claims.9 For example, humanitarian intervention withoutthe backing of the UN to impose a universal ethics that are embeddedwithin certain human rights instruments, followed by peacebuilding thatimposes a particular economic and political structure upon sovereign actors,can, depending on the details of the policies, be interpreted as a possibleexpression of this position.

    The conceptual matrix allows us to formulate what I think is an important

    hypothesis about the politics of insecurity in the West in the wake of 9/11: Isthe key stake in the struggle over exceptionality in especially Western inter-national politics not first of all about the intensification of anti-diplomaticinwardness and about the nature of this intensification (realist or liberal anti-diplomacy) rather than the normative debate about the status and relevanceof international law? To raise this question, the politics of insecurity cannot

    be limited to the legal debates about exception but needs to venture intoexistentialist renditions of the relation between exceptionality and authen-ticity. As a result, two conflicts enrich the usual distinction between liberal

    26 Security Dialogue vol. 37, no. 1, March 2006

    9 For an excellent discussion of this distinction in the context of 9/11 and the original use of the term InfiniteJustice for the US response to 9/11, see Rancire (2002).

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    and realist politics: (a) conflict between those searching to retain significantcommon ground for symbolic mediation in international politics and thoseintensifying anti-diplomatic inwardness [conflict between quadrants 1 and 2,

    on the one hand, and quadrants 3 and 4, on the other], and (b) conflictbetween those representing a realist ultrapolitics and those supporting aliberal ultrapolitics [conflict between quadrants 3 and 4].

    * Dr Jef Huysmans is Senior Lecturer at the Open University (UK). His research centreson the political significance of security practice in Western societies, the securitization ofimmigration, asylum and refugees, and the politics of fear and exception. He is authorofThe Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (Routledge, 2006), andedited, with Andrew Dobson & Raia Prokhovnik, The Politics of Protection: Sites ofInsecurity and Political Agency (Routledge, 2006). Jef Huysmans would like to thankClaudia Aradau, Costas Constantino, Mervyn Frost, Vivienne Jabri, Raia Prokhovnik,

    Michael Saward, Antje Wiener and the anonymous referees for helpful comments onearlier drafts. Thanks also to the British Academy for an overseas travel grant.

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