New Publication on Exceptionalism and the War on Terror

Claudia Aradau (Open University) and Rens van Munster (DIIS) have recently published an article for the British Journal of Criminology, titled: Exceptionalism and the “War on Terror”: Criminology Meets International Relations Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, surveillance and other practices deployed in the "war on terror" have all been defined as sites of exception and arbitrary decisionism that simultaneously function as the violent limit condition for the existence of sovereignty, law and politically qualified life.

Introducing an argument about the "war on terror" as both transgressing and underwriting the law, this article unpacks the state of exception as a useful tool for apprehending the constitution of domestic and global power relations. What does it mean to constitute liberal political communities and define power relations, domestically and internationally, through the exception? What difference does the "war on terror" make for the constitution, regulation and reproduction of political communities? Exploring these questions, the authors argue that understanding the ways in which exceptionalism operates will also help critical scholarship to grasp the deteriorating effects of the "war on terror" on political communities and social transformation