Mobilising uncertainty and the making of responsible sovereigns

Abstract

Abstract. The past few decades have witnessed a fundamental change in the perception of threats to the security of states and individuals. Issues of security are no longer primarily framed in terms of threats posed by an identifiable, conventional enemy. Instead, post-Cold War security policies have emphasised the global and radically uncertain nature of threats such as environmental degradation, terrorism and financial risks. What are the implications of this transformation for one of the constitutive principles of international society: state sovereignty? Existing literature has provided two possible answers to this question. The first focuses on the alleged need for states to seek international cooperation and to relax claims of national sovereignty. In Ulrich Beck's terminology, this would amount to a transformation of sovereign states into 'cosmopolitan states'. The second takes the opposite position: in response to uncertain threats states rely on their sovereign prerogatives to take exceptional measures and set aside provisions of positive law. In Beck's terminology, this would amount to the creation of a 'surveillance state'. None of these two answers, however, does justice to the complex relation between sovereignty, power and (international) law. As this article will show, the invocation of radical uncertainty has led to a transformation in sovereignty that cannot be captured in terms of the cosmopolitan/surveillance dichotomy. What is at stake is a more fundamental transformation of the way in which sovereignty is used to counter threats. Based on a study of the UN Counterterrorism Committee, this article demonstrates how state sovereignty is used as a governmental technology that aims to create proactive, responsible subjects.

Explaining Trends in Risk Governance: How Problem Definitions Underpin Risk Regimes

“…Haggerty () goes as far as calling surveillance the “…dominant organizing practice of late modernity” (p. 160). When paired with fear of catastrophic harms such as mass terrorist attacks, this emphasis on prevention can give rise to Beck's () version of the “surveillance state,” in which “security concerns trump civil and political rights while the rule of law is hollowed out” (Aalberts & Werner, ). However, as described in the first two trends, most regulatory regimes seem to take a softer path to preventive surveillance that emphasizes self‐monitoring and meta‐surveillance.…”

Beyond the ‘RtoP’: Responsibility as doing, being and sharing

“…Scholars tend to focus directly on the pros and cons of this norm and its application, such as the use of humanitarian intervention as a pretext for regime change, rather than treating it from a specific theoretical perspective (for exceptions see Panke and Petersohn, 2011;Capie, 2012). Historical analyses show that responsibility has been linked to sovereignty (Glanville, 2010a, b;Aalberts and Werner, 2011;Glanville, 2013) and that some states hold special responsibilities linked to their special rights as great powers (Lawson and Tardelli, 2013). In a critical evaluation of the RtoP from a realist perspective, Moses (2012, p. 134) highlights that powerful states make use of responsibility for their own winning: 'We have already seen ethical zeitgeist of global responsibility can be captured by powerful states with the US neo-conservative claim to "benevolent hegemony" and rejection of criteria that would limit the exercise of their interventionist power at the 2005 UN World Summit'.…”

Reality of Norms and Reality: A Reply to Fred Grünfeld

“…30 When joining the legal and IR positions, we gather useful insights into the transformation of the concept of sovereignty. 31 The effect is not only one-way. International politics are heavily restrained by law and law shapes international politics.…”