No exceptions: authoritarian statism. Agamben, Poulantzas and homeland security

Abstract

This article outlines and compares two different ways of making sense of counterterrorism and the configuration of political power in its context. Against the backdrop of US homeland security, it first outlines Agamben’s thesis on the permanent state of exception. Despite its resonance with key aspects of homeland security, this thesis is found to be analytically limited and theoretically brittle. To overcome its shortcomings and provide a better understanding of contemporary organisation of political power, a strategic-relational approach is suggested, derived from Poulantzas’s state theory.

Keywords:

• authoritarian statism
• state of exception
• homeland security
• strategic-relational approach
• Agamben
• Poulantzas

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr David Seymour for his useful, critical comments on earlier drafts of this article and the two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful and concise indications.

Notes

1. For a critical review of some of these positions, see Neocleous (2006).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christos Boukalas

Christos Boukalas is a researcher in Cardiff Law School. His current research project, The Pre-emptive Turn in Law, is sponsored by the Journal of Law and Society. He has a PhD in state theory from Lancaster University (Department of Sociology) and expertise in contemporary American counterterrorism policy. He has accomplished an ESRC-sponsored research project on Counterterrorism Policy: Law, the State, and Implications for the Polity (Centre for Law and Society, Lancaster University). His research interests include political and state theory, counterterrorism, theory of law, criminal law and theory of democracy. He has published several articles and book chapters in these areas. His book Homeland Security, its Law and State – A Design of Power for the 21st Century will be published by Routledge in April 2014.