A Comparison of Giorgio Agamben’s and Judith Butler’s Philosophies Regarding Sovereignty and Biopolitics

Amberly Walton Todd A. Hoffman, PhD

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/president- obama-expected-make-statement-guantanamo- n524131 Sovereignty, Democracy, and Sovereign States

Sovereignty is the idea that power is centered in one governmental department along with the idea of self-justification

Democracy has a balance of powers with no single department controlling all decisions

Sovereign states are democratic governments exhibiting sovereign character often through declaring a state of emergency Giorgio Agamben Judith Butler Sovereign State and the Sovereign Sovereign State and Governmentality Exception Biopolitics as a Modern Phenomenon Biopolitics from the Beginning Bare life as a Power Play Bare life as a Requirement of Political Systems

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as- interdisciplinary-intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 6055 Judith_Butler Sovereign State and the Sovereign Exception

Sovereign exception is the paradox within sovereignty where the sovereign excludes himself from the law.

Declaring a state of emergency delineates a government as having sovereign character

Sovereignty is the original form of government

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Biopolitics and Michel Foucault

Biopolitics is defined as how governments control or manage aspects of human life

Foucault claims that the entrance of biopolitics marks the beginning of modern politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault Biopolitics from the Beginning

“the production of a biopolitical body is the original activity of sovereign power” and that biopolitics is not a modern phenomenon but is rather “as old as the sovereign exception” (Homo Sacer, pg. 11)

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Biopolitics from the Beginning

Sovereign governments center around subjugating and monitoring humans

Biopolitics has been around as long as government has since sovereignty is the original form of government

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Bare Life

An individual who has been stripped of all political identity and is merely alive

Does not have the rights of a basic human life due to his political status being revoked

Still under the whim of political powers

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Bare Life: A Requirement of Political Systems

Reduction of man to bare life has occurred across every political system

The sovereign exception is at work for both the sovereign and for those under bare life

Democracy is founded upon a contradiction

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Sovereign State and Governmentality

Governmentality is defined “as a mode of power concerned with the maintenance and control of bodies and persons” and that it “operates through state and non-state institutions and discourses that are legitimated neither by direct elections nor through established authority” (Indefinite Dentention, pg. 52)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Judith_Butler Sovereign State and Governmentality

Governmentality, not sovereignty, is concerned with the control of bodies

Without governmentality, the state would cease to exist.

A democracy continues to exist by maintaining control over populations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Judith_Butler Biopolitics: A Modern Phenomenon

Governmentality introduces biopolitics

Agrees with Foucault

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Judith_Butler Bare Life as a Power Play

Reducing an individual to bare life is an instrument of power

Agamben’s argument is not detailed enough

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Judith_Butler Bare Life as a Power Play

Declares Agamben’s argument as unable to “tell us how this [sovereign] power functions differentially, to target and manage certain populations” and that bare life is used to “[differentiate] populations on the basis of ethnicity and race” (Indefinite Detention, pg. 67-68)

Examples include Nazi concentration camps and Guantanamo Bay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Judith_Butler Implications and Dangers

Agamben’s philosophy is naive and dangerous

Individuals in a democratic society are an absurd comparison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Being stripped of political identity is not the natural state Judith_Butler of man

Bare life is used against groups of people and that must be acknowledged

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary- intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben/6055 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Hoffman for his assistance in putting together this presentation. References

Agamben, Giorgio. “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life.” 1998. Stanford University Press. http://libgen.io/book/index.php? md5=B0ACB6DAB583C1B3AEB313D5AC980C1F

Butler, Judith. “Indefinite Detention.” Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Reprint 2006 by Verso, pp. 50-100. D2L.

Erlenbusch, Verena. “The Place of Sovereignty: Mapping Power with Agamben, Butler, and Foucault.” Critical Horizons, vol. 14, issue 1, 2013, pp. 44-96. Galileo, doi: 10.1179/15685160X3A

Frost, Tom. “Agamben’s Sovereign Legalization of Foucault.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 2019, pp. 55-577. Galileo, doi: 10.1093/owls/gqq015

Schotten, C. Heike. “Against Totalitarianism: Agamben, Foucault, and the Politics of Critique.” Foucault Studies, no. 20, December 2015, pp. 155-179. Galileo, ISSN: 1832-5203. Questions?