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Showing papers in "International Political Sociology in 2012"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the tension between the illegal status of new immigrants and their limited but effective incorporation does not always pit formal law against informal practices, but is often located within law itself.
Abstract: Over the past decades, citizenship studies have explored in detail the various forms of social and civic integration achieved by otherwise illegal residents in contemporary immigration countries. While a great deal of analysis has tended to rest on a dichotomy between formal exclusion on the one hand and informal incorporation on the other, recent studies have begun questioning this dualistic model by examining the formal circuits of incorporation followed by unauthorized denizens at various geographical and institutional levels. Taking cues from this emerging line of research, this article makes three interconnected arguments. First, in contemporary liberal democracies, the rising tension between the illegal status of new immigrants and their limited but effective incorporation does not always pit formal law against informal practices, but is often located within law itself. Second, as a dynamic institutional nexus, “illegality” does not function as an absolute marker of illegitimacy, but rather as a handicap within a continuum of probationary citizenship. An incipient moral economy sees irregular migrants accumulating official and semiofficial proofs of presence, certificates of reliable conduct and other formal emblems of good citizenship, whether in the name of civic honor, in the hope of lesser deportability, or in view of future legalization. Third, such access to formal civic attributes is simultaneously being made increasingly difficult by the intensification of restrictions and controls from immigration, labor, and welfare authorities, thus confronting irregular migrants with the harsh dilemma of being framed as “more illegal” for the very documentary and economic features also assumed to improve their present and prospective civic deservingness.

204 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Prugl, Elisabeth as discussed by the authors argued that this discourse amounted to an exercise in meaning making through the construction of a myth of woman as financially responsible and men as reckless, and interpreted the deployment of this myth in the press as a morality play of fall, rise, and redemption.
Abstract: Prugl, Elisabeth. (2012) “If Lehman Brothers Had Been Lehman Sisters…”: Gender and Myth in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis. International Political Sociology , doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2011.00149.x © 2012 International Studies Association In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008/09, there was a remarkable preoccupation in the English-language press with gender relations in finance. Articles adduced masculinity as a variable that may have caused the crisis, speculated about the more prudent investment styles of women, and predicted the fall of macho and the end of men. Drawing on the work of Roland Barthes and Simone de Beauvoir, I argue that this discourse amounted to an exercise in meaning making through the construction of a myth of woman as financially responsible and men as reckless. I interpret the deployment of this myth in the press as a morality play of fall, rise, and redemption. The play provides a narrative that explains the unfamiliar of the crisis, offers a correcting mechanism in the form of prudent woman, and re-assembles a bourgeois worldview of social and economic harmony by advocating more gender diversity in finance.

97 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the ontology of numbers, the history of numbers and their role in transnational governance are reviewed, and the main distinctive ways that numbers are implicated in Transnational Governance are discussed.
Abstract: This study examines how numbers in transnational governance constitute actors, objects, and relationships, including relationships of power. We review the existing literatures on numbers for insights relevant to their role in transnational governance, including the ontology of numbers, the history of numbers and their role in governance. On this basis, we set out the main distinctive ways that numbers are implicated in transnational governance. We conclude that studies of transnational governance would benefit from paying more attention to the much overlooked performative role of numbers in governance processes. Numbers have properties that differ from words, and shifts from one to the other in governance, for instance in the displacement of laws or norms with risk models or rankings based on numbers, have particular effects, including political effects on states, firms, individuals, and other actors and institutions.

96 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a panoramic account of Greek migration politics during the 1990s is presented, which shows that securitization can be discursive or non-discursive, pre-mediated or subconscious, and beneficial or detrimental for actors.
Abstract: The field of security is largely controlled by elites who, by virtue of their authority, are able to create an image of an enemy which is largely independent of the objective significance of a threat. However, a narrow focus on speech acts and discourse analysis to study such processes of securitization is inherently inadequate. This article provides a panoramic account of Greek migration politics during the 1990s. It shows that securitization can be discursive or nondiscursive, pre-mediated or subconscious, and beneficial or detrimental for securitizing actors. Elite interviews and an in-depth analysis of contextual factors help make sense of these dynamics.

75 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Nisha Shah1
TL;DR: Shah as mentioned in this paper argues that attempts by theories of globalization to overcome the "territorial trap" have failed, and argues that the assumption in globalization theories that territory is the state's physical area entrenches the normative defense of the territorial state as the framework of political order.
Abstract: Shah, Nisha. (2011) The Territorial Trap of the Territorial Trap: Global Transformation and the Problem of the State’s Two Territories. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2011.00144.x © 2011 International Studies Association This paper argues that attempts by theories of globalization to overcome the “territorial trap” have failed. Describing how the modern state emerged with two interrelated territories—a political concept about bounded jurisdiction and public good that over time is effaced but reinforced as territory is defined as brute, physical terrain—it shows that the assumption in globalization theories that territory is the state’s physical area entrenches the normative defense of the territorial state as the framework of political order. The consequence is that overcoming the territorial trap not only requires uncovering how and why territory becomes an assumed political ideal, but also how and why this trap produces the subsequent trap of understanding territory primarily as the “physical substratum” of the sovereign state. Globalization theories’ analysis of political transformation must therefore focus not only on the “permeability” of territorial borders, but whether and how evolving notions of global space might be providing a different political theory. A preliminary discussion of efforts to uncover how an alternative global spatial principle is reassembling political authority suggests a possible means of escape and way forward.

66 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A hybrid form of post-liberal peace emerges from this agonistic process, which points to an understanding of peacebuilding-as-liberation Rather than producing subjects, this enables subjects to produce peace as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A post-liberal peace engages with the politics of hybridity emerging from a mixture of contextual and international social, political, economic, cultural, and historical dynamics of peace It represents an attempt to escape liberal enclosure and distant administration as well as contextual forms of violence in post-conflict zones—from Bosnia Herzegovina to Afghanistan Critical agency as a form of resistance aimed at liberation from the structures of conflict, and structural violence—wherever they lie—rather than solely relying on external norms and capacity, is key From this tension, a range of “local,” transversal, and transnational agencies can be uncovered in many peacebuilding or statebuilding contexts, which may resist, modify, or co-opt intervention in unexpected ways A hybrid form of peace emerges from this agonistic process, which points to an understanding of peacebuilding-as-liberation Rather than producing subjects, this enables subjects to produce peace

60 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze counterterrorist lawmaking as an instance of security politics through archival parliamentary analysis of British counterterrorism legislation at three different times: in the wake of a perceived security emergency (2001), when the impact of an emergency is fading (2008); and when there is no emergency (2000).
Abstract: This article analyzes counterterrorist lawmaking as an instance of security politics. It does so through archival parliamentary analysis of British counterterrorism legislation at three different times: in the wake of a perceived security emergency (2001); when the impact of an emergency is fading (2008); and when there is no emergency (2000). The findings show that over time, legislative exceptions and emergencies become normalized. By taking a parliamentary, legislative, and historical perspective, the article also challenges some of the assumptions of the exceptionalism debate.

59 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper argued that practices and materials have become entangled across professional and disciplinary contexts, and argued that the growing association of chaotic climate change encompasses climatologists, who challenge the mainstream ontology of climate; economists, who started to revisit their economic models; and strategic communities, which began to pick up nonlinear climate changes foregrounding national security.
Abstract: During the last decade, the framing of climate change has been significantly transformed. It has turned from a gradually intensifying, long-term challenge into a highly nonlinear danger that threatens national security. This article explores the reasons, and points to the consequences, of this change. Drawing from actor-network theory, it argues that practices and materials have become entangled across professional and disciplinary contexts. The growing association of chaotic climate change encompasses climatologists, who challenge the mainstream ontology of climate; economists, who started to revisit their economic models; and strategic communities, which began to pick up nonlinear climate changes foregrounding national security. Methodologically, the principle of symmetry that underlies this research aims, as far as is possible, to transcend the dualistic notions of science and politics, and society and nature. The article thereby attempts to open up a debate about the usefulness of a symmetrical approach to enhance research both on global environmental governance in particular, and global politics in general.

53 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss two important concepts: "autonomy" of diaspora agents vis-a-vis original homelands, and their "positionality," or positions of power in different states and international organizations.
Abstract: This contribution to a forum on "Diasporas and IR" aspires to elucidate theoretical connections between International Relations as a discipline, and the under-theorized study of transnational diaspora poliics. It discusses two important concepts: "autonomy" of diaspora agents vis-a-vis original homelands, and their "positionality," or positions of power in different states and international organizations. These concepts are important yet undertheorized in the study of IR.

52 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery during the sub-prime crisis is provided, and lines of pragmatic resistance are suggested, which turn the logic of trauma toward broadly progressive ends.
Abstract: The article provides a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery during the sub-prime crisis. We develop a pragmatic approach to performativity that foregrounds the ambiguity between the importance of performative utterances, on the one hand, and overlapping performativities that produce subjects capable of ‘‘hearing’’ such utterances, on the other. We argue that a performative effect of the traumatic narrative of the sub-prime crisis was to constitute it as ‘‘an event’’ with traumatic characteristics. Financial subjects came to anticipate the object of financial salvation through intervention to save the banks; and such a view worked to curtail the range of political possibilities that were thinkable. Lines of pragmatic resistance are suggested, which turn the logic of trauma toward broadly progressive ends. In this way, the political dimension of performativity is brought forward: if finance is performative, then this only invites the question of how we might perform it differently.

40 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Andersen and Skumsrud as discussed by the authors suggested that recent debates may be categorized in a two-by-two matrix, which concerns the choice between a normative or a sociological perspective on the one hand, and a focus on state institutions or on society on the other.
Abstract: Andersen, Morten Skumsrud. (2012) Legitimacy in State-Building: A Review of the IR Literature. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00159.x © 2012 International Studies Association In this article, which focuses on different concepts of state-building and legitimacy as used in the mainstream International Relations (IR) literature, I suggest that recent debates may be categorized in a two-by-two matrix. The axes concern the choice between a normative or a sociological perspective on the one hand, and a focus on state institutions or on society on the other. The article identifies an empiricist-sociological approach. Still, the almost exclusive reliance on an ontology of entities and their attributes hampers foci on relations as constituting both “insides” and “outsides” in state-building, and on legitimacy as important in its own right as ongoing public contestations. In a concluding section, I explore the purchase of a relational sociology for future studies of legitimacy in state-building.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a phenomenological focus on the links between military corporeal conditioning, possibilities for the industry's emergence, and the impact of contractors on security is presented, with the concept of geocorporeality to make explicit the geopolitical relevance of security contractors' military trained bodies.
Abstract: As a consequence of the ontological and epistemological traditions dominating the private military and security company literature to date, the embodied dimensions of the industry have been overlooked. The current article addresses this lacuna through a phenomenological focus on the links between military corporeal conditioning, possibilities for the industry's emergence, and the impact of contractors on security. I develop the concept of geocorporeality to make explicit the geopolitical relevance of security contractors' military trained bodies. The article concludes by drawing out the implications of this embodied line of enquiry for questions of contractor accountability and agent intentionality.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Kessler et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that while we have already made some progress in describing the spatial implications of functional differentiation, less effort has been spent on the temporal side of the story.
Abstract: Kessler, Oliver. (2012) World Society, Social Differentiation and Time. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00151.x © 2012 International Studies Association In the current attempt to develop a Global Political Sociology, the concept of functional differentiation increasingly attracts attention. Functional differentiation seems to promise an avenue to describe global processes beyond a methodological nationalism. In this contribution I argue that while we have already made some progress in describing the spatial implications of functional differentiation, less effort has been spent on the temporal side of the story. This contribution highlights this aspect and points to shifting temporalities in the context of finance and international law. This perspective suggests that many “governance problems” might be due to the clash of different temporalities co-existing in world society.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how International Relations (IR) is currently blind to gender diversity, and the conceptual contributions trans-theorizing could make, including hyper- and in-visibility, liminality, crossing, and disidentification.
Abstract: This article engages with trans-theorizing to show how International Relations (IR) is currently blind to gender diversity, and the conceptual contributions trans-theorizing could make. To do so, it asks what insights trans-theorizing might provide for the study of global politics generally, and for feminist theorizing about gender in global politics specifically. After briefly introducing the terminology of trans-theorizing, the article addresses the potential for (and potential hazards of) an alliance between trans-theorizing and feminist theorizing in IR. The article then discusses several potential contributions of trans-theorizing—including hyper- and in-visibility, liminality, crossing, and disidentification—which provide explanatory leverage for IR. The article concludes with some suggestions for further collaboration between trans-theorizing and (feminist) IR to deepen and widen IR's work on gender specifically, and global politics generally.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose to de-center the analysis and move away from the state as a starting point to shift the focus toward the construction of diasporas as actors and as a "governmental category".
Abstract: In recent years diasporas have become portrayed as newly emerging actors in the international arena. This “‘discovery’ of expatriate populations” (Larner 2007:334) involved a growing number of state, nonstate, and international institutions reaching out to diasporas, increased expatriate organizing, and a certain institutionalization of diaspora activities. Diasporas are portrayed as development actors, transnational investors, trade and tourism promoters, political activists, peace brokers, and conflict instigators. Yet, none of these activities of expatriate populations are particularly new. Why is it then that diasporas have been “discovered” and promoted as actors in international affairs only recently? Much existing literature conceptualizes the recent involvement of diasporas in terms of individual states' decisions to reach out to their diasporas as an instrument of foreign policy (Shain and Barth 2003; Brinkerhoff 2008; Gamlen 2008). Thereby, the state is often posited as the starting point and diasporas are conceptualized as a given entity or an individual actor that interacts with the state, equally seen as an entity. Yet, diasporas are composed of heterogeneous groups of people who do not a priori share common values and interests. Moreover, we are not talking about a process of simply mobilizing groups of people who have already organized according to their countries of origin, although this does not mean that such organizing does not exist. Hence, this contribution proposes to de-center the analysis and move away from the state as a starting point to shift the focus toward the construction of diasporas as actors and as a “governmental category” (Larner 2007). Referring to expatriate citizens in terms of “the diaspora” represents an act of constituting the subject of the diaspora. Situating this “discovery” in the context of broader transformations in global governing in recent decades, I argue that the creation of the diaspora as an actor in international …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the ontological politics of defining a population or a set of relations as "diasporic" has been studied in the context of diaspora research.
Abstract: A key aspect of diaspora research in international relations should be on the ontological politics of naming migrants, travelers, nomads, guest workers, minorities, their relations, and their politics “diasporic.” Academic debates about the definitions of diaspora are endless; not only is this quest largely a waste of time, but it marginalizes a more important issue—namely, the politicality of defining a population or a set of relations as “diasporic.” I draw here on the notion of “ontological politics,” as developed within actor network theory by John Law and Annemarie Mol (Mol 1999). In her work on clinical practices, Mol demonstrates that a disease such as anemia is not a single reality. It is performed in at least two different ways that depend on the methods through which it is diagnosed and therefore “made real”: (i) the analysis of external symptoms by a doctor and (ii) the analysis of hemoglobin levels in a laboratory. What Mol shows is that these are not just different ways at getting at the same preexisting phenomenon but rather that the two methods produce two broadly similar yet distinct realities. For example, a patient might present with the external symptoms of anemia but display healthy hemoglobin levels. Similarly, a patient might feel perfectly fine yet present alarming levels of hemoglobin. Given such a context, in which ways should anemia be diagnosed? Detecting anemia with the first method implies personal one-on-one meetings with doctors as well as a large system for screening the population. The second method implies broad laboratory tests and statistical calculations. Moreover, one method will probably omit a fraction of the population that does not show signs of anemia according to the other method. This is what is entailed by “ontological politics”: Ultimately, competing enactments of reality determine the conditions of possibility for political choices. …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that community is not a full circle, but an open-ended line, and argued that looking at community as a line is a way to avoid the statist boundary, the subject of which is situated either inside or outside.
Abstract: In this paper, I explore one way of thinking about political community. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's idea of community, I suggest that community is not a full circle, but an open-ended line. Thinking community-as-a-line is to shift our focus from the completed pictures of community to the inception of community. In this way of thinking, community is a shared mode of being. I argue that at the heart of sharing lies translation-communication – or translation space – where one (singularity) is perpetually ingrained in others (plurality). The subject constantly “emerges” in relation to others in translation space. I argue that looking at community as a line is a way to avoid the statist boundary, the subject of which is situated either inside or outside. I further argue that the elusive subject in translation space engages in politics through escape.

Journal ArticleDOI
Stefan Elbe1
TL;DR: This securitization of health has already brought us the new concept of “health security,” which increasingly shapes the formulation and implementation of international health policy (Davies 2008, 2010; Bell 2012; Weir and Mykhalovskiy 2010).
Abstract: Every era, it is said, has its defining malady. What will be ours? Will it be a new pandemic caused by an animal-borne infectious disease, such as bird or swine flu? Will it be a lethal microbe like anthrax, deliberately released by a terrorist group bent on causing mass civilian casualties? Or will it be one of our new “lifestyle” diseases—the epidemics of smoking, obesity, and excessive alcohol consumption that threaten to engulf our societies? Perhaps our era will even be remembered for its tragic neglect of certain health issues—endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS that (despite international efforts) continue to ravage millions in developing countries. Whatever the answer, international politics is no longer characterized by its preoccupation with a single disease, but rather by its need to urgently confront an epidemic of epidemics. The unease surrounding these challenges is sufficiently pronounced for governments to identify them as high-level threats to security—be it to national security, to biosecurity, or even to human security (McInnes and Rushton 2010, 2012; Elbe 2009, 2010; Howell 2011). This securitization of health has already brought us the new concept of “health security,” which increasingly shapes the formulation and implementation of international health policy (Davies 2008, 2010; Bell 2012; Weir and Mykhalovskiy 2010). Yet, it would be wrong to dismiss this rise of health security as merely the latest instance of securitization in world politics. A sociological perspective also exposes it as a …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comparison of materiality and praxis elements of identity construction in imperial Rome and late-modern Austria-Hungary is made, with concluding analysis of the role of material culture in the future of European identity in the EU.
Abstract: Much recent work on culture and identity in International Relations (IR) has emphasized the causal role of ideas and institutions I articulate a broader socialization process for collective identities via material elements of identity construction I argue that combined with rituals and linked to myths and symbols, material representations of culture such as monuments and architecture form the collective memories of polities in a similar manner to the socializing effects of educational institutions and vernacular literature I illustrate these claims with a comparison of materiality and praxis elements of identity construction in imperial Rome and late-modern Austria–Hungary, with concluding analysis of the role of material culture in the future of “European” identity in the EU

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The International Political Sociology (IPS) journal as discussed by the authors has been a meeting ground between sociology, political theory, and international studies for a long time and has attracted a wide range of contributions from historical, legal, economic, cultural, and political sociology.
Abstract: Since its appearance, International Political Sociology ( IPS ) has tried to respond to the diversification of scholarly concerns in contemporary international studies. Its primary intellectual signature has been the creation of a stimulating and influential meeting ground between work in sociology, political theory, and international studies. A wide range of traditions from historical, legal, economic, cultural, and political sociology have been brought to bear on some of the key questions defining world politics today. We and the new editorial team are strongly committed to further explore this work at the interstices between sociology and international studies. In particular, the journal will continue to develop along the lines set out by the founding editors in 2007 (Bigo and Walker 2007). The key characteristics defined by Didier Bigo and Rob Walker are the following. Contemporary enactments of worlds, the international, and the global have international studies reaching beyond its disciplinary resources again. Similarly, sociology has been increasingly reaching into international studies when moving beyond methodological nationalism to understand social transformations and global social phenomena. IPS seeks to intensify emerging conversations between sociology, social theory, and international studies. In particular, it seeks to engage the antagonisms at the heart of disciplinary divides and modern modes of organizing worlds in innovative ways. For that purpose, IPS seeks to creatively rework the modern categorical dichotomies of state and society, sovereignty and market, national and international, the social and political, nation and state, global and international, and community and society. To make this conversation possible, IPS calls for sustained engagement with sites and events that re-invent and skew in unsettling ways what is called social and political. The emphasis on sociology brings a renewed focus on practice, on …

Journal ArticleDOI
Thomas Olesen1
TL;DR: The authors identifies and analyzes four areas in which the transformation of the Rwanda genocide from national event to global injustice memory has occurred: institutionalization, expressions of regret, analogical bridging, and cultural products.
Abstract: Within a relatively short span of time, and culminating with the tenth anniversary of the genocide in 2004, the 1994 Rwanda genocide has become a key global injustice memory. At the core of this process is a double-sided conception of injustice: on the one hand, the genocide in itself clearly constitutes a major injustice; on the other hand, injustice claims have been expanded to encompass actors outside of Rwanda who observed the horrors without instigating sufficient action to halt, or at least mitigate the effects of, the unfolding genocide. It is the fact that moral and political responsibility for the genocide has been so powerfully expanded to third parties in a spectatorship position that most vividly testifies to the global character of the Rwanda injustice memory. The article identifies and analyzes four areas in which the transformation of the Rwanda genocide from national event to global injustice memory has occurred: institutionalization, expressions of regret, analogical bridging, and cultural products. The article argues that the transformation of non-Western events into global injustice memories has so far been insufficiently explored within International Relations and global political sociology.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Blad et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that the rise of Islamist political efficacy is the result of efforts to maintain state legitimacy in an era of neoliberalism, which reduces state economic regulatory capacities and social service endowment.
Abstract: Blad, Cory and Banu Kocer. (2012) Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey: The Role of National Culture in Neoliberal State-Building. International Political Sociology , doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00150.x © 2012 International Studies Association The rise of Islamist parties to positions of political dominance in Turkey has been the subject of inquiry for scholars and concern for some American and European observers. This paper argues that this rise of Islamist political efficacy is the result of efforts to maintain state legitimacy in an era of neoliberalism. The integration of neoliberalism as a dominant political economic ideology reduces state economic regulatory capacities and social service endowment. The effect of this retrenchment is a commensurate reduction in state legitimation, as national populations view the state as unable—or unwilling—to meet requisite economic protectionist demands that were formerly exchanged for legitimate support. In an attempt to retain legitimate authority, neoliberal states are forced to move beyond economic protectionist strategies and embrace increasingly cultural legitimation approaches. We juxtapose the use of economic protectionist strategies in the 1945–1980 period with the integration of Islam as a cultural legitimation strategy following the 1980 coup in Turkey.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bulley et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that London's depiction of itself as hospitable to every kind of visitor relies on subtle techniques of governmentality in which the subject positions of "host" and "guest" are imagined and produced in ways that make them more governable.
Abstract: Bulley, Dan and Debbie Lisle. (2012) Welcoming the World: Governing Hospitality in London’s 2012 Olympic Bid. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00158.x © 2012 International Studies Association London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games presented a diverse, cosmopolitan city opening its arms and “welcoming the world.” This article explores the apparently benign gesture of hospitality contained in London’s official candidature files submitted in 2004 and asks how such a promise of inclusiveness is managed. We argue that London’s depiction of itself as hospitable to every kind of visitor relies on subtle techniques of governmentality in which the subject positions of “host” and “guest” are imagined and produced in ways that make them more governable. By this, we are not referring to acts of authority, coercion, or discipline that exclude subjects or render them docile bodies within a rigid panoptical city. Rather, we are referring to the delicate ways in which the official bid document imagines and produces the ideal subject positions of host and guest and in so doing enables, encourages, and incentivizes certain behaviors. This analysis of urban welcoming takes us beyond reductive oppositions of hospitality and hostility, inclusion and exclusion, self and other. It focuses instead on how London’s inclusive welcome produces a variety of host and guest positions (for example, the “Olympic Family,” volunteers, guest workers), segregates them within the city, and then “conducts their conduct” in the areas of planning, security, transport, accommodation, education, and training. By analyzing the techniques of governmentality at work in London’s 2004 bid document, this article foregrounds the enabling form of power driving the city’s inclusive welcome and exposes its inherent micropolitics.

Journal ArticleDOI
Colleen Bell1
TL;DR: In the field of medicine, infectious and malignant diseases are a “threat” that people hope to “evade.” If the body is infected or overrun by the disease, medical experts wage a counter attack as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Metaphors help people make sense of their environment. They are particularly useful in reasoning about complex and unfamiliar situations (Chilton 1996:48). There is a long history of analogy between medicine and warfare. In the field of medicine, infectious and malignant diseases are a “threat” that people hope to “evade.” If the body is infected or overrun by the disease, medical experts wage a counter attack. If the patient survives, they are said to have “won the battle” (Sontag 1990; Mongoven 2006). In the context of international politics during the Cold War, communism was declared to be a “malignant parasite” (Kennan, quoted in Neocleous 2008:118). More recently, metaphors of illness, patient, and physician—constituting a strategic allegory of medical intervention—have appeared as characters in the narrative of modern counterinsurgency. Military doctrine, given its rather grim and instructional nature, may seem like an odd host for metaphorical prose. Yet, the point of doctrine is to produce common language and understanding for the conduct of military operations. Military doctrine “codifies how the institution thinks about its role in the world and how it accomplishes that role on the battlefield” (Nagl 2007:xiv). In the case of counterinsurgency, however, the battlefield is neither a meeting place between two armies, nor simply a realm of military activity. If one looks carefully at what counterinsurgency emphasizes, it is the close integration of military activity and civilian expertise, with a specific population-centric, rather than enemy-centric, focus. Though targeted violence is customary, what distinguishes counterinsurgency is its emphasis on cultural awareness, communication, security sector reform, humanitarian response, and reconstruction (Bell 2011). Hence, counterinsurgency is a dramatically integrated and holistic enterprise. Communicating counterinsurgency's holistic framework has, at least partly, been achieved through the allegory of …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the extent and limits of non-state forms of authority in international relations are examined, focusing on the challenge that highly volatile and short-lived cycles of demands for this type of knowledge pose for ensuring the right qualification of the labor force.
Abstract: This article examines the extent and limits of nonstate forms of authority in international relations. It analyzes how the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure for the tradability of services in a global knowledge-based economy relies on informal regulatory practices for the adjustment of ICT-related skills. By focusing on the challenge that highly volatile and short-lived cycles of demands for this type of knowledge pose for ensuring the right qualification of the labor force, the article explores how companies and associations provide training and certification programs as part of a growing market for educational services setting their own standards. The existing literature on non-conventional forms of authority in the global political economy has emphasized that the consent of actors, subject to informal rules and some form of state support, remains crucial for the effectiveness of those new forms of power. However, analyses based on a limited sample of actors tend toward a narrow understanding of the issues concerned and fail to fully explore the differentiated space in which nonstate authority is emerging. This article develops a three-dimensional analytical framework that brings together the scope of the issues involved, the range of nonstate actors concerned, and the spatial scope of their authority. The empirical findings highlight the limits of these new forms of nonstate authority and shed light on the role of the state and international governmental organizations in this new context.

Journal ArticleDOI
Lorna Weir1
TL;DR: This article delineates the systemic features of global health security by contrasting it with the immediately preceding period of mandatory international communicable disease control, and enables a characterization ofglobal health security as an epistemological break in global public health and global biopolitics.
Abstract: The meaning of global health security is surprisingly elusive. This article seeks a more precise understanding of global health security by undertaking a genealogy of its historical formation and specificity. I delineate the systemic features of global health security by contrasting it with the immediately preceding period of mandatory international communicable disease control. This analysis enables a characterization of global health security as an epistemological break in global public health and global biopolitics. Drawing on a series of linked studies conducted with Eric Mykhalovskiy (Mykhalovskiy and Weir 2006; Weir and Mykhalovskiy 2006, 2010), I also seek to rectify an over-preoccupation with neoliberal governance in the sociology of public health by focusing on the significance of security for health. From 1892 to the end of the twentieth century, international health law tasked a series of international health organizations with protecting their members states against the international transmission of a small number of communicable diseases named “at law” in disease lists. The named diseases formed the target (main antagonist) of mandatory public health action in the area of international communicable disease control. A century later, the target came to be redefined after a 1993–1994 US–Canadian alliance sought to render WHO responsible for preventing the international transmission of “emerging infectious diseases” (EID), that is, infectious diseases whose incidence was increasing. Posed as a “microbial threat” to US national interests, the EID concept had been formulated in the United States as part of a project to revitalize its public health system. The EID concept encompasses new, emerging, and reemerging diseases, an open set that in principle cannot be legally conceptualized through disease lists. Recontextualized in international infectious disease control, the expansive EID concept conflicted with the terms of WHO's legal …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This research presents a meta-analysis of health interventions for strategic effect in Iraq and Afghanistan using data from the 2003 invasion and its aftermath as a guide to future policy-makers.
Abstract: McInnes, C. J., Rushton, S. B. (2012). Smart power? Health interventions for strategic effect in Iraq and Afghanistan. International Political Sociology, 6 (3), 328-331. Research funded by ERC Ideas Grant 230489 GHG

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TL;DR: The study of health in international relations, and of the uses, rationales, and authority of medicine, is of critical importance, because matters of global health have been the subject of increasing policy action, attention, and funding.
Abstract: Health is a difficult thing to argue with. We desire it, pursue it, and wish it for others. And yet, actions taken in the name of health are certainly not always benevolent. Health imperatives—perhaps particularly in the global arena—are often vexed, caught up in the exercise of power, and come with unintended consequences. For this reason, the study of health in international relations, and of the uses, rationales, and authority of medicine, is of critical importance. It is also of critical importance now . Matters of global health have been the subject of increasing policy action, attention, and funding. Health and …

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors of Heart of Darkness were compared to Marlow-like narrators of the forgotten peoples of the world, and the failure of such works to “translate” across diverse reading publics attests to the imperfections of conveying traumatic stories with drawings and words.
Abstract: Edward Said's praise of comics journalist Joe Sacco as a kind of “Marlow” (from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness ) is an analogy that reminds us of the contextualization of current affairs graphic novels in other media. While scholars and laypeople alike have praised serious comics and animated works for their capacity to get readers interested in “the horror, the horror” (iconic words of Heart of Darkness ), the failure of such works to “translate” across diverse reading publics attests to the imperfections of conveying traumatic stories with drawings and words. Said's own earlier writing on Heart of Darkness helps to qualify his appraisal of Marlow-like narrations of the forgotten peoples of the world. In Culture and Imperialism (1993), Said explains that author Conrad (through Marlow) ingeniously accomplishes the tragic exposition of European imperialism in “two visions.” First, Conrad acknowledges that his readers (Marlow's “listeners”) are located “in a particular time and in a specific place,” and second, Conrad permits Marlow to use “arabesque meditations” of ideas, and alternating blunt and evasive language, to capture the unrelenting journey of European imperial mastery (Said 1993:23).

Journal ArticleDOI
Ákos Kopper1
TL;DR: In the late nineteenth century, painting took a different understanding of spatiality and its representation as mentioned in this paper, and the coloring book's imaginary is increasingly ill-fitted to describe socio-political realities.
Abstract: Metaphoric descriptions of the world offer simple cognitive schemes to put things in their place, thereby offering keys to make reality easily interpretable For centuries, the prevailing understanding of the political relied on an imaginary where borders were conceived like the lines of a coloring book , cutting political space into distinct state boxes, where citizens were defined congruously with the box of their state The spatial knowledge inherent in this metaphor defined the dispositif of modernity—how to “map the world”—both in the socio-political and artistic domains In the late nineteenth century, however, painting took a different understanding of spatiality and its representation This article suggests that today—when the coloring book's imaginary is increasingly ill-fitted to describe socio-political realities—we could turn to art for a metaphor that would better capture late-modernity's understanding of borders and socio-political spaces In sum, the article suggests turning to the paintings of Cezanne for inspiration