Showing papers in "International Political Sociology in 2008"

The Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian Metropolis

Abstract: Neoliberal penalty is paradoxical in that it purports to deploy ‘more state’ in the realm of the police, criminal courts and prisons to remedy the generalized rise of objective and subjective insecurity which is itself caused by ‘less state’ on the economic and social front in the leading countries of the First World. It reaffirms the omnipotence of Leviathan in the restricted domain of public-order maintenance, symbolized by the running battle against street delinquency and clandestine immigration that has everywhere surged to the forefront of the civic stage, just when the state claims and proves to be incapable of stemming the fragmentation of wage labor and of bridling the hypermobility of capital that converge to destabilize the entire social edifice. And, as I showed elsewhere (Wacquant 1999; 2001a), this is no mere coincidence: it is precisely because the governing elites, having converted to the new ruling ideology of the all-mighty market radiating from the United States, relinquish the state’s prerogatives in socioeconomic matters that they must everywhere enhance and reinforce its mission in matters of domestic ‘security’1 after having abruptly reduced the latter to its sole criminal dimension, and furthermore to festering lower-class crime in the streets as opposed to mounting upper-class lawbreaking in corporate suites.

The jargon of exception—on Schmitt, Agamben and the absence of political society

Abstract: The idiom of exception is again central to the politics of insecurity in Europe, the United States, and Australia. One of the key characteristics of the jargon of exception is its suppression of political renditions of the societal. In doing so, it eliminates one of the constituting categories of modern democratic politics, hence producing an impoverished and ultimately illusionary understanding of the processes of political contestation and domination.

The Force of a Weak Field: Law and Lawyers in the Government of the European Union (For a Renewed Research Agenda)

Abstract: Rather than considering legal and judicial arenas as the mere surface of the weighty social processes that shape European integration, this article contends that they are actually one of the essential spaces where the government of Europe is being produced. To account for this paramount role played by law in EU polity, two hitherto unexplored research paths are followed. First of all, a socio-historical perspective focuses on the critical junctures at which Law has been formalized as a science of European government providing critical devices for integration. Second, a more sociological stance is taken in relation to the functioning of the ‘‘European legal field’’ (ELF). A preliminary inquiry leads to its characterization as weak, with porous internal and external borders. This article argues that this weak autonomy is what makes it strong and influential when it comes to shaping the representations and principles of EU government.

Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Indeterminacy

Abstract: In this paper, I argue that critical international theory could benefit from a broader and deeper conception of the limits of knowledge—that what is needed is more attention to the role of ambiguity in contemporary politics. In doing so, I am not denying the usefulness of the more prevalent concepts of uncertainty and risk used by scholars applying the frameworks of global governmentality and world risk society. This essay is instead proposing that we understand risk and uncertainty as two specific categories of indeterminacy that have come to preoccupy contemporary neoliberal thinkers and policymakers, and hence their critics, but which nonetheless tend to downplay the interpretive dimensions of the limits of knowledge. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things, as well as the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, I develop an analysis of the role of ambiguity in global governance—as an object of global governance, a tool to be exploited by it, and a limit to its operation. Concluding with the case of international financial governance, this essay suggests that not only will a focus on ambiguity shed light on the historical evolution of global finance, but it also provides us with some clues to the sources of the current sub-prime financial crisis.

The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory

Abstract: The study of international relations (IR) took an important disciplinary turn in the 1950s, when a number of scholars sought to develop a distinct theory of international politics. This turn, however, should not be understood as a tendency toward specialization, but rather as a separatist movement, meant to insulate the study of international politics from the behavioral revolution that was transforming the practice of political science in postwar America. Promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation, the “theorization” of IR encapsulated a very specific intellectual and ultimately political agenda at odds with the kind of liberalism dominant at the time.

Security, Law, Borders: Spaces of Exclusion

Abstract: Politics of borders and the distinction between inside/outside have become an important security practice of liberal states. Borders are strategically used to change the balance between security and liberties. This article analyzes the legal constitution of border zones and argues that security is not exceptional in its constitution but results from ordinary law and practices. Illiberal practices at border zones are embedded in ordinary politics of the liberal state.

Building the Other, Constructing Ourselves: Spatial Dimensions of International Humanitarian Response

Abstract: Humanitarian reconstruction after a large-scale natural disaster has become a key site of international politics; a site where global assumptions, relationships, and responsibilities are negotiated, solidified and questioned. While post-crisis response strategies and institutional practices have strong spatial and material characteristics, these are rarely considered as significant—either to the reconstruction effort, or to international politics more generally. This article identifies and examines the “auxiliary space” created by the everyday practices of international aid workers and asks whether its effects may lead to unanticipated and potentially transformative outcomes not only for the reconstruction effort, but also for global North-South relations at large. The article concludes that post-crisis reconstruction sites may offer both cautionary and emancipatory potential for the evolution of international relations.

On the Cypriot States of Exception

Abstract: This article explores the politics of exceptionality in Cyprus. It focuses on the postcolonial constriction of Cypriot statehood—the framing of the sovereign itself as an exception—and how the emerging discourse of exceptionality unfolded a spiral of states of exception on the ground. Looking in and across a variety of Cypriot sites and regimes (north, south, sovereign base areas and buffer zone) the article examines what claims of exceptionality legitimate in political and everyday life as well as their ironic and paradoxical effects. Finally, it looks at how the Cyprus case informs debates on current theorizations of exceptionalism.

The Sociology of New Wars? Assessing the Causes and Objectives of Contemporary Violent Conflicts

Abstract: The recent accounts of the new war paradigm have been thoroughly scrutinized in a variety of disciplines from security studies and international relations to political economy. The general trend is to focus on the scope, methods, tactics, strategies, forms of war, and/or the level of atrocity. However, there has been little sustained attempt to assess structural causes and the arguments about the changing aims of contemporary warfare. This paper provides a critical analysis of the macro sociological accounts of the new war paradigm with a spotlight on the purpose and causes of the recent wars. The author argues that despite the development of elaborate models, the sociology of contemporary warfare rests on shaky foundations and hence fails to convince. Rather than witnessing a dramatic shift in the causes and objectives of contemporary violent conflict, one encounters a significant transformation in the social and historical context in which these wars are waged.

'Pirates', stewards, and the securitisation of global circulation *

Abstract: This article is a contribution to the theorization of global maritime circulation as a key category of a global biopolitics of security. It seeks to advance knowledge on the ways in which liberal life is promoted and protected by exacerbating global circulation. It focuses on the security effects of a complex maritime insurance apparatus driven by global insurance in which the Joint War Committee of the Lloyd’s Market Association and the International Underwriting Association plays a pivotal role. Through the analysis of the inclusion of the Strait of Malacca in the Lloyd’ War List in 2006 under the argument of heightened piracy, it is argued that global maritime insurance performs a special security role, that of stewardship, in securing the circulation of the high seas.

Borders, Territory, Law1

Abstract: This article takes as its starting point legal arguments deployed by the United Nations on the situation of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay. This case raises a series of provocative questions about the contemporary relation between borders, territory, and law. First, it challenges dominant assumptions about the nature and location of authority in world politics based upon a conventional logic of inside/outside. Second, it raises the issue of what critical theoretical/philosophical resources might be available in order to rethink the above relation. Third, it summons the need to develop alternative border imaginaries. It is argued that some prospects for addressing these questions are found in the work of Benjamin, Derrida, Schmitt, and Agamben.

Situating the “Secular”: Negotiating the Boundary between Religion and Politics

Abstract: In recent decades, scholars in the field of international relations (IR) have increasingly paid attention to issues of religion—often linked to “civilizational” and “cultural” identities. The IR field at large unconsciously assumes, however, that there is a “secular”“norm” against which the “religious” dimensions of IR can be analyzed or compared. Western IR scholars often take the “secular” for granted, rarely considering how the boundaries of the “secular” are defined and deployed in scholarship and policy. Building on decades of debate over “secularization theory” by sociologists of religion (see Hadden 1987; Chaves 1994; Stark 1999; Cox 2000), William E Connolly’s (1999) critique of “secularism,” and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd’s (2004, 2007) examination of secularist assumptions in IR theory, this article suggests that defining secularism as a political negotiation over the accepted role of religion in public life rather than as an a priori category (Hurd 2004; Goldstone 2007) has methodological and theoretical consequences to which IR scholars and policy makers, particularly those interested in issues of democratization and religious fundamentalism should pay attention. Using illustrations from the Middle East—a current focal point for debate on both democratization and religious fundamentalism—this article builds on the secularization debate to suggest that IR scholarship treating the “secular” and “religious” as opposing categories obscures more than it explains in terms of analyzing the role of religion in contemporary Middle Eastern politics.

Responsible Scholarship After Leaving the Veranda: Normative Issues Faced by Field Researchers—and Armchair Scientists

Abstract: The article deals with the normative lessons that political scientists can learn from ethnology’s experiences with ethnography. Ethnographic methods like participant observation differ significantly from other methods since they explicitly blur the boundary between theory and practice; this blurring requires researchers to carefully evaluate their conflicting responsibilities to the people studied, to the scientific community, and to themselves. Many of the insights generated in ethnology are relevant for political scientists, too, especially for those political scientists who are prepared to “leave the veranda” and want to put ethnographic methods to use, but also for those who prefer to remain in the position of an “armchair” researcher.

Can Ethnographic Techniques Tell Us Distinctive Things About World Politics

Abstract: Iver Neumann's paper on speech-writing practices in the Norwegian foreign ministry, besides presenting a fascinating glimpse of a side of official political action that we scholars don't often see, implicitly raises a broader methodological question: can ethnographic techniques tell us distinctive things about world politics? What is the benefit of pursuing an ethnographic approach to IR research? To begin with, we should distinguish between ethnographic methods and ethnography as a form of interpretive methodology . Methods are techniques for the collection of data, while methodology deals with how epistemological and ontological considerations are incorporated into the research process (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2002:459–460). “Ethnography” conventionally implies both a method and a methodology: the method of participant-observation, and the methodology of endeavoring to make sense of how others make sense of the world (Geertz 2000:56–58). The two are linked, of course. The methodological goal of abandoning attempts to account for the world “as it really is in itself” in favor of a focus on sense-making practices—a goal which stems from a philosophical rejection of both the mind-body duality and the correspondence theory of truth—calls for some kind of data collection technique that respects the involvement of the researcher in and with the object researched (Jackson 2006). But it is …

Global Order, US Hegemony and Military Integration: The Canadian‐American Defense Relationship

Abstract: This article argues that the contemporary IR literature on global order and American hegemony has limitations. First, the critical discourse on hegemony fails to adequately examine the deeply embedded nature of regularized practices that are often a key component of the acceptance of certain state and social behaviours as natural. Second, much of the (neo)Gramscian literature has given primacy to the economic aspects of hegemonic order at the expense of examining global military/security relations. Lastly, much of the literature on global order and hegemony has failed to fully immerse itself within a detailed research program. This article presents an historical sociology of Canada-US defense relations so as to argue that the integrated nature of this relationship is key to understanding Canada’s role in American hegemony, and how authoritative narratives and practices of “military integration” become instrumental and persuasive in establishing a “commonsensical” worldview. The effects of such integration are especially clear in times of perceived international crisis. Our historical analysis covers Canada’s role during the Cuban missile crisis, Operation Apollo after 9/11, and the current war in Afghanistan.

“Post-Heroic Warfare” and Ghosts—The Social Control of Dead American Soldiers in Iraq

Abstract: According to some researchers, the public acceptance of military intervention is conditional upon the minimization of military mortality. Once a threshold of military death is crossed, political leaders are obliged to limit their ambitions. This research proposes to consider the idea of threshold as mythical. Instead, it suggests focusing at the presence of the ghosts the dead American soldiers in the public sphere and the way they are ``ventriloquated'' in order to support or contest the intervention.

For a Public International Relations

Abstract: The last few years have seen an opening up of what is considered to be the legitimate terrain of international relations (IR). This move is, for the most part, extremely welcome. Yet, the multiple theoretical and empirical openings in IR since the end of the Cold War have failed to elucidate many of the puzzles, questions and problems posed by the contemporary conjuncture. There are a number of reasons for this failure ranging from the stickiness of Cold War problem fields to IR’s continued attachment to systemic-level theories. However, this article focuses less on symptoms than on treatment and, in particular, on how generating a more “public” international relations enterprise might help to connect IR with the core theoretical, empirical and normative terrain of “actually existing” world politics. Taking its cue from recent debates in sociology about how to generate a “public sociology,” the article lays out three pathologies that a public IR enterprise should avoid and four ground rules—amounting to a manifesto of sorts—which sustain the case for a “public” international relations.

Expanding Ethnographic Insights into Global Politics

Abstract: Ethnographic research methods are an important but largely neglected source of insight into international relations. Some of the issues at stake are exposed—or at least implied—in Iver Neumann's (2007) compelling recent examination of diplomatic speech writing. Drawing on his experiences in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Neumann explores how deeply entrenched institutional habits gear the process of speech writing toward producing and sustaining ministry identity, harmony and a stable view of an external world over and against other goals. By examining the tension between his personal ambition as a speech writer and the dictates of bureaucratic behavioral norms, Neumann suggests opportunities for scrutinizing rather than reproducing taken-for-granted entities, such as the individual or the state. The ethnographic challenge entailed in Neumann's (2007) work raises methodological questions which deserve to be discussed in the pages of IPS. Central here is the need to acknowledge how the author …

Globalizing Pathologies: Mental Health Assemblage and Spreading Diagnoses of Eating Disorders

Abstract: Psychiatric researchers recently have published evidence of eating disorders in regions around the world, despite previous conceptions of eating disorders as ‘‘culture-bound syndromes.’’ What pressures or processes encourage this apparent spread of eating disorders diagnoses, and what do they tell us about state mental health policy? This paper argues that the spread of diagnoses results from global-level instances of assemblage: conglomerations of scientific expertise, state policy, international institutions, and practices employed with a will to improve the lives of perceived sufferers of mental disorder. Cases of global mentalhealth policy illustrate the ways in which mental health assemblage produces a ‘‘distrust in the ‘self-governing’ governed.’’ Current psychiatric research on mental disorders suggests that the diagnosis of eating disorders has spread from developed Western states to non-Western and developing states. The trend is notable because it comes despite conventional wisdom that eating disorders are ‘‘Western culture-bound syndromes associated with culture-driven factors, such as unrealistic expectations of slenderness and attractiveness, changes in the role of women, and social standards and attitudes towards obesity’’ (Shuriquie 1999). Researchers in developed non-Western states and regions nonetheless have begun to claim that eating-disorder rates rival Western states’ rates, and researchers in developing non-Western states are making similar claims. For example, scholarship published recently on Japan, South Korea, and Singapore populations claims increased anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa rates (Efron 1997), while a study of Hong Kong–based subjects professes the ‘‘cross-cultural disease validity’’ of anorexia nervosa (Lee, Chan, and Hsu 2003:967). Meanwhile, a study conducted by Turkey-based scholars of Turkish subjects observes, while ‘‘[a]norexia nervosa is an eating disorder that primarily affects female adolescents and is more commonly seen in westernized countries… nowadays it is also increasing rapidly in developing cultures such as Turkey’’ (Ozdel, Atesci, and Oguzhanoglu 2003). A 2000 study conducted in Tehran, Iran, ‘‘suggests that the prevalence of eating disorders among female adolescents in Teheran is comparable to prevalence rates reported by studies in Western societies, and somewhat higher than what has been reported in other non-Western societies’’ (Nobakht and Dezhkam 2000:265). Researchers observing Chinese undergraduates predict that females increasingly will be ‘‘predispose[d]… to weight control behavior and eating disorders’’ (Lee, Leung, Lee, Yu, and Leung 1998:77). An Egypt-based investigation of Egyptian subjects contends that ‘‘morbid eating patterns’’ are emerging in Egyptian society with

Imperial Warfare in the Naked City—Sociality as Critical Infrastructure

Abstract: The Global War on Terror (GWOT), framed as conflict with groups and individuals determined to disrupt and destroy “critical infrastructures,” is heavily dependent on technological and psychological discourses and practices to find terrorists and their plots.[1][1] These methods seek to protect the material “backbone” of contemporary society and to detect those individuals whose capabilities might progress to action. Yet, the social nature of all action suggests that “critical infrastructure is people,” and that surveillance cannot, by itself, determine who might act and who will not. The ultimate purpose and effect of the GWOT is better understood as involving the transformation of individual mentalities, so that “heretical” thoughts and practices become impossible. [1]: #fn-1

Government and Discipline

Abstract: In a recent discussion of the second, much expanded edition of Stephen Lukes’ Power: A Radical View , I argued that the system of states is the site of a major limitation in Lukes’ analysis (Hindess 2007). Not only does Lukes in this book say nothing about power in international affairs, but also his focus on what he takes to be the “generic” meaning of power (2005:69), and thus on domination, is likely to obscure important aspects of the workings of power at that level. I might have added that the charge of neglecting the international could be levelled against my own analysis in Discourses of Power (Hindess 1995), which hardly mentions international affairs, and indeed against the discussions of power in Foucault's published work. One could defend Foucault's work (but not my book) against this criticism by referring to his Lectures at the College de France (see Foucault 2007; lecture 11) and by observing that, while his many discussions of power do not directly address international affairs, his general understanding of power could easily be extended to the international sphere where it would serve …

Exceptionalism: Theoretical and Empirical Complexities.'

Abstract: Roxanne Lynn Doty's article, “States of Exception on the Mexico-US Border” is a brilliant demonstration of how to use empirical case studies to undermine the assumptions of theories and concepts. This is an important methodological and political move, for it asserts a priority of phenomena over theory. In international relations, theories and theorists cannot simply be regarded as innocent means of explaining certain phenomena for they very often have political effects. This is never more the case than with Schmitt and securitization theory. The key statements of Schmitt [“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”(Schmitt 1985:5)] and securitization theory [“By definition, something is a security problem when the elites declare it to be so”(Waever 1995:54)] are not simply explanatory but are at worst, in the case of Schmitt, a normative ideal, and at best, in the …

Foucault Against the Grain

Abstract: Critique does not have to be the premise of a deduction which concludes: this then is what needs to be done. It does not have to lay down the law for the law. It is not a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is (Foucault 1991:84). In an interview published in Le Monde in 1980, Michel Foucault denounced criticism that simply passes judgment and “hands down sentences,” calling instead for “a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination” (Foucault 1997: 323). For Foucault, critique is not that which seeks out resolution, reconciliation or the smoothing out of difficulty, but rather that which discomforts and unsettles one's sense of certainty. Understood as a tendency to leave the audience unsettled, to work against the grain of the mood of the times, Foucault's writings and teachings embody what Edward Said called, in his own last book, “late style.” In Ibsen's later plays, as in Benjamin Britten's opera, Said finds “works that seem to break away from the amazingly persistent underlying compact” (Said 2006:5). In such works there is no …

Articulating the Nexus of Politics and Law: War in Iraq and the Practice within Two Legal Systems

Abstract: Does law rule foreign affairs in the democratic state? Basically, one might expect that democratic executives operate on the ground of what is called the Rechtsstaat, and that in a political system with checks and balances operations—especially those eventually dropping out of that ground—are subject to judicial review. However, legal systems are more often than not willing to abstain from a legal governance of its countries’ foreign policy—because of “political reasons.” Moreover, democracies obviously vary according to their legal operations. At least in the area of foreign affairs, the relationship of democracy and law does not take up a necessary character. Facing this contingency, the article engages in the discursive construction of a politics and law nexus in the course of the operations of two legal systems, in the United States and Germany. For that reason, it will proceed by deconstructing two legal decisions related to the war in Iraq. Building upon the premise that legal practices are intertwined into a larger web of (legal) text, the article argues that the possibility of a judicial abstention in cases bearing reference to foreign policy issues depends on meaning produced in the course of the signification and positioning of discursive elements like “politics” and “law.” Thus, speaking law is a politico-legal practice.

Foucault and the Event

Abstract: What is the sense of an event? In this piece I would like to explore this question by juxtaposing Foucault's presentations of two types of event: the discursive event and the revolutionary event. In both cases, the event fundamentally involves difference and the way differences are brought together or synthesized. The issue of difference, in turn, underpins the event's relations with truth, subjectivity, power, politics, and history. Foucault (1989) maintains that a discursive formation's unity is a function of its regularity in dispersion. “Tradition,” “author,” “science,” and other abstract principles of unity, he holds, are imposed externally onto discourse and “require, in order to be defined exactly, a theoretical elaboration” (71). In everyday language, “dispersion” suggests scattering or diffusion. However, it has another, more appropriate technical meaning: in chemistry, a dispersion is a mixture of heterogeneous substances, such as an aerosol (a liquid dispersed in a gas) or an emulsion (one liquid dispersed in another). Considered in this way, a discursive formation's unity arises from its regularity in synthesizing divergent discourses. Psychopathology, for example, is a discourse formed in the intersections of a clinical discourse's health/sickness binary and a …

Michel Foucault and the Problematization of European Governance

Abstract: If I were to make a list of the articles that have influenced me most in my academic writing, Richard Ashley's “Imposing International Purpose” (Ashley 1989) would definitely be on it. In a period when it had become fashionable for those who wanted to be progressive to talk about “global governance” and “governance without government” (see Rosenau and Czempiel 1992), Ashley developed a distinctly Foucauldian theme to problematize the governance fad. Problems of transnational or global governance, he argued, do not simply exist as objectively given, but are constructed by discourses that “impose” a “purpose” on international society. This may have been a rather obvious statement, but it is easy to forget how uncontested the principal idea of governance was at the time, and how rarely challenged its positive connotations. The problems of the global governance literature, however, ran even deeper through the work on European integration and governance. Andrew Moravcsik's liberal-intergovernmentalist voice, giving prominence to the power of domestic interest groups within member states in …

Learning from Alker: The Fifth Lesson

Abstract: Hayward R. Alker's (1937–2007) mind was exceptionally creative and synthetic. He was constantly experimenting with new ideas; and sending his articles, conference papers and drafts for comments and feedback to people around the world. In the late 1980s, Professor Hannu Nurmi from the University of Turku in Finland was on Alker's mailing list. Nurmi, who was working on rational choice theory and formal analysis of voting systems, had known Alker since his mathematical political science phase (see for example, Alker 1965). Knowing my interests, Nurmi gave copies of Alker's papers to me, then a young assistant and PhD-student in the same department. At the time I was totally preoccupied with trying to rewrite international relations theory from the point of view of various critical theories. Then ZAP, POW, WOWIE !! Here was someone who had been doing that for years and years, and in such an imaginative way. Those papers—many of which remained unpublished until Rediscoveries and Reformulations (Alker 1996)—left a lasting impact on me. Soon Alker played also a very important practical role as an external pre-examiner of my PhD-thesis Critical Realism and World Politics (Patomaki 1992), helping to make it much better than it would have been otherwise. I finally met Alker in person, for the first time, in Atlanta, Georgia, immediately after his enthusiastic 1992 ISA Presidential Address called “The Humanistic Moment in International Relations: Reflections on Machiavelli and Las Casas” (Alker 1993). During the ensuing 15 years, we kept regularly in touch. He gave insightful comments on many of my manuscripts and kept on sending his latest papers to me. Over these years, we met only in the context of various ISA conferences but those meetings—brunches or dinners together in various hotel complexes of the big U.S. cities—will remain vivid in my memory as highly exceptional …

Introduction to the Forum—Foucault and International Political Sociology

Abstract: For more than two decades now the works of the French historian, philosopher, intellectual, and activist (with varying opinions as to which role is primary) Michel Foucault (1926–1984) have attracted increasingly widespread attention among students of International Relations (IR) in general and within the emerging subfield of International Political Sociology (IPS) in particular. Foucault often said that he was interested in the capillary nature of power—exchanges at the most miniscule level—and thus his focus was often turned away from what is normally understood as the international context. In a way he has left us guessing as to what a so-called Foucauldian analysis of the international would look like. It is perhaps for this reason that there is such variety in the adoption, uses, and appropriations of his work within IR/IPS. Given such variety, and in light of the long and sustained interest in his works and the important role this interest arguably played in the emergence of IPS as a specific field of inquiry, it seems timely to directly address the question as to what the uses of …

Paris Sciences Po IPS Conference, October 26–27, 2007

Abstract: On October 26 and 27, 2007, researchers and specialists gathered at the premises of Sciences Po Paris, to start a debate on the concepts of international, political and sociology. This conference was organized under the scientific responsibility of Didier Bigo (CERI-Sciences Po Paris) and R.B.J. Walker (University of Victoria/Keele University) by International Political Sociology ( IPS )1 and the COST network2 Action A24 “The evolving social construction of threats.” The conference opened with an address by Bruno Latour, Professor and Vice-President for research at Sciences Po. Latour focused on the way that sociology has for long relied unduly on national borders and commended the move to bring sociology to the global level. He also stressed the variety of definitions of globalization and the strength of contemporary debate on this phenomenon. Latour made specific reference to the sociologist Gabriel Tarde, stressing the importance of his work in building a global sociology. Following this inaugural speech, Didier Bigo and Rob Walker presented the IPS project. They explained that the main objectives of the journal are to bring a sociology of the global together with International Relations (IR) and to develop exchanges between Anglo-Americans IR scholars and European sociologists. They stressed the importance of bringing the disciplines together, and of discussing different concepts of externality and internality expressed on the frontiers between disciplines. The creation of the journal is a means to bring to light ongoing reflections on the dynamics between the three concepts of international, political, and sociological. Supported by the eponymous section of the International Studies Association, the journal has so far been able to draw on innovative research from Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States, but also seeks to generate more transdisciplinary perspectives from all parts of the world. To take an overall view and initiate the debate, …

Foucault, Discipline and Raison d’État in Early Modern Europe

Abstract: At certain points in his work, Michel Foucault gives the impression that disciplinary power is antithetical to sovereign power. In the confrontation between Hobbes’ Leviathan and Bentham's Panopticon, Foucault (1980:102, 121) urges eschewing the model of Leviathan and cutting off the king's head. However, in his research on “governmentality,”Foucault (1991, 2000) dispels the impression that disciplinary and sovereign power are antithetical, suggesting instead that they “can only be understood on the basis of the development of the great administrative monarchies” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Foucault 1991:102–103). In this essay I wish to sketch some of the intellectual terrain on which this art of government takes shape; namely, seventeenth century theories and practices of state absolutism. I argue that Foucault's historical research into confinement, discipline, and governmentality may be fruitfully conjoined with intellectual histories and state-building literatures to develop a fuller account of the historical emergence of the early modern states-system's distinctive political rationality— raison d'Etat (reason of state)—and its relation to …