Biopolitics, Counter-Terrorism and Law After 9/11

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Biopolitics, Counter-Terrorism and Law After 9/11 Biopolitics, Counter-terrorism and Law After 9/11 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities. 2013 Svetoslav Nenov School of Social Sciences Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Declaration .............................................................................................................................................. 5 Copyright Statement ............................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 8 1. The impact of 9/11 ..................................................................................................................... 8 2. Full tilt: (Counter)-terrorism and state power ........................................................................ 10 3. Foucault, Schmitt, exception ................................................................................................... 11 4. Remembering Foucault ............................................................................................................ 16 5. Lines of research ....................................................................................................................... 17 6. Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 25 Chapter 2. Theorising Security: An History of Biopower ...................................................................... 35 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 35 2. Life, race, war ........................................................................................................................... 36 3. Security, Population, Governmentality ................................................................................... 47 4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 57 Chapter 3. Terrorising Security: Biopolitics in the 21st Century ............................................................ 59 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 59 2. A Topology of Powers .............................................................................................................. 59 3. Exceptionalism after 9/11: the problem of the limit as a problem of war ............................ 65 4. Biopolitics after 9/11: governing life through war, exception and race ................................ 75 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 82 Chapter 4. Discipline, Security and Law After 9/11: The Doctrine of Pre-emption and the Legacy of the PATRIOT Act. ................................................................................................................................... 84 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 84 2. Defining the Threat .................................................................................................................. 85 3. The US Doctrine of Pre-emption .............................................................................................. 92 4. The PATRIOT Act and the distributed sovereign decision ...................................................... 98 5. Pre-emptive surveillance and the PATRIOT Act: defeating the terrorists’ plans ................. 108 6. The biopolitical assay of life and the PATRIOT Act ............................................................... 120 Chapter 5. The Battle for Guantanamo Bay: Sovereignty, Exceptionalism and Shades of Law ......... 128 1. Prelude .................................................................................................................................... 128 2. The ties that bind: Rasul v Bush as an expression of the legal prerogative ......................... 138 2 3. Powers, separated .................................................................................................................. 148 4. Law without democracy, democracy without ;aw ................................................................ 162 5. Conclusion: shades of law ...................................................................................................... 173 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 176 Bibliography of Primary Resources ..................................................................................................... 183 Word Count: 79, 895 3 Abstract Svetoslav Nenov The University of Manchester A thesis submitted towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities Biopolitics is a concept that, much like the apparatus it refers to, has kept evolving ever since Foucault coined its modern meaning in 1976. Its usage and interpretation have especially changed with the recent publication of The Birth of Biopolitics and Society, Territory, Population, books that helped expand its perceived field of application, specifically vis-à-vis the modern governmental rationales of neo-liberalism and, by association, neo- conservatism. In a separate development, the Western dispositif (apparatus) of biopolitics has undergone a dramatic transformation as a result of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, attacks after which, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, ‘everything changed’. My thesis takes both of these developments into account and provides a critical exploration of contemporary biopolitical US counter-terrorist measures. Emphasis is placed on a contextual juridico-political analysis that sheds more light on the complex interrelations between the relatively novel biopolitical dispositif and the classical legal dispositif of sovereignty. This is accomplished by a two-part empirical genealogical study that traces some of the pivotal judicial changes that have resulted from the counter-terrorist measures introduced in the wake of 9/11. It proposes that the PATRIOT Act, one of the primary legislative tools introduced after 9/11, is a distinctively ‘bio-legal’ document that allows for the integration of the biopolitical discourses of pre-emption, exception and contingency within the existing legal framework. I argue that this is a genuinely novel development that significantly alters the intersection of biopolitics, geopolitics and law. The second part of the empirical analysis presents a detailed interrogation of the legal disputes that involve the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and, over the course of three key legal cases, shows that, even though the logic of biopolitics has now established a foothold within the US juridical system, the classical apparatus of Sovereignty still plays a decisive role in US governance. My key arguments are preceded and supported by an extensive overview of the notion of biopolitics, both as it was first introduced and developed by Foucault over the course of five publications, and as it is currently being used by key contemporary social theorists, especially insofar as this usage relates to the changes in Western politics after 9/11. Overall, the thesis provides a profound interrogation of the epistemic status of biopolitics, and it supplements this purely theoretical analysis with a detailed overview of how biopolitics and sovereignty interact in practice through the mechanism of the law, in the context of US counter-terrorist policies after 9/11. 4 Declaration I, Svetoslav Nenov, hereby declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 5 Copyright Statement COPYRIGHT STATEMENT i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions.
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