“…153, 154). Christos Boukalas () is helpful in understanding Agamben’s thesis.The sovereign is the actor whose prerogative is to decide whether the exception actually exists. It is not (necessarily) the law‐creating body, but the one empowered to suspend the law.…”
Section: Agamben’s State Of Exceptionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Christos Boukalas’ () trenchant analysis will guide the following application of the Agambenian lens to the Nicaraguan case, unpacking the conceptual framework of the sovereign, bare life, and state of exception, while generating questions about recent events in Nicaragua.…”
Section: Nicaragua Through the Agambenian Lensmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the face of an internal period of disorder, the sovereign acts to create “a space devoid of law, a zone of anomie in which all legal determinations … are deactivated” (Agamben, , p. 50). The sovereign takes action to create an exception, concentrating power as “a singular, unitary actor” (Boukalas, , p. 113). Boukalas (, p. 120) notes that Agamben does not adequately specify who the sovereign is.…”
Section: Nicaragua Through the Agambenian Lensmentioning
This article analyzes Giorgio Agamben’s state of exception and evaluates its implications for understanding the crisis in Nicaragua in 2018. The lens of exception fails to encourage critical questions about the complicated social and historical dynamics of Nicaragua’s contentious politics. Conflict transformation and global civil society could open a space for the social forces struggling to redefine state power and resolve the crisis.
“…153, 154). Christos Boukalas () is helpful in understanding Agamben’s thesis.The sovereign is the actor whose prerogative is to decide whether the exception actually exists. It is not (necessarily) the law‐creating body, but the one empowered to suspend the law.…”
Section: Agamben’s State Of Exceptionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Christos Boukalas’ () trenchant analysis will guide the following application of the Agambenian lens to the Nicaraguan case, unpacking the conceptual framework of the sovereign, bare life, and state of exception, while generating questions about recent events in Nicaragua.…”
Section: Nicaragua Through the Agambenian Lensmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the face of an internal period of disorder, the sovereign acts to create “a space devoid of law, a zone of anomie in which all legal determinations … are deactivated” (Agamben, , p. 50). The sovereign takes action to create an exception, concentrating power as “a singular, unitary actor” (Boukalas, , p. 113). Boukalas (, p. 120) notes that Agamben does not adequately specify who the sovereign is.…”
Section: Nicaragua Through the Agambenian Lensmentioning
This article analyzes Giorgio Agamben’s state of exception and evaluates its implications for understanding the crisis in Nicaragua in 2018. The lens of exception fails to encourage critical questions about the complicated social and historical dynamics of Nicaragua’s contentious politics. Conflict transformation and global civil society could open a space for the social forces struggling to redefine state power and resolve the crisis.
“…Among others, the lack of empirical evidence brought by Agamben to support his claims (e.g. Humphreys 2006), the premature declaration of the end of democracy and the disregard for the control and power of the courts and civil society organizations (Bigo 2007;Humphreys 2006), the involvement of the legislature in the "legalization" of exceptional measures (Boukalas 2014), and the naivety of Agamben's argument with regards to the permanence of the State of Exception as a misconception by the philosopher of the nature of law and its relationship with violence in liberal democracy (Neocleous 2006). Despite these relevant reflections, the exception thesis still offers an interesting perspective on how pervasive modern state power can easily be unleashed in response to anxiety inducing world risks such as terrorism (Beck 2002;Bigo 2007).…”
This article analyses two recent French counterterrorist legislations (Law No. 2016-386hereafter OCT&F law and the Law No 2017-1510hereafter the OCT&Flaw) through the lens of distinct yet complementary theoretical frameworks. Combining the State of Exception thesis of Giorgio Agamben, the Enemy Penology as framed by Günther Jakobs as well as the more recent scholarship contributions on Pre-Crime, the article seeks to contribute to the scholarly debate on the use and the consequences of the use of criminal and administrative law in the fight against terrorism. In view of the numerous terrorist attacks that France has faced in recent years, the article aims to provide deeper knowledge of the French case by drawing substantially from the unfamiliar French scholarship. The article argues that the measures recently adopted seem to deepen the exceptional and pre-emptive logic in which potentially dangerous subjects have to be identified as "the enemy" as soon as possible in order to then be contained and dealt with.
“…Agamben's method was accused of lacking the attention to detail needed for an adequate description of our political moment (Neal 2004;Rabinow and Rose 2006;Huysmans 2008). After much initial enthusiasm for his analysis of sovereignty, a number of commentators argued that the exception was inadequate to describe the juridical and administrative technologies deployed in the War on Terror (Johns 2005;Neal 2006;Hussain 2007;Neocleous 2008;Boukalas 2014). Concerns were raised about Agamben's focus on the sovereignty and the state at the expense of analysing the economy (Hardt and Negri 2009;Colatrella 2011).…”
Giorgio Agamben's work has often been criticised for being bleak, pessimistic, and of little use for thinking about political action. This image of Agamben has, however, resulted from a narrow reading of the Homo Sacer project that isolates it from his early thought on language and ontology. This essay draws on new works by Mathew Abbott and Jessica Whyte to explore the ways that Agamben attempts to think the conditions for overcoming the political nihilism of the present. It argues that the two works diverge on the question of where Agamben locates the potential for political transformation, and that this results from their differing approaches to the relationship between ontology and politics.
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