Between The Norm And The Exception

Winner, 1996 Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize for the best book onliberal and democratic theory, Conference for the Study of Political Thought. Winner, 1994 First Book Prize, Foundations of Political Thought Organized Section, American Political Science Association. Between the Norm and the Exception contributes historical insight to the ongoing debate over the future of the rule of law in welfare-state capitalist democracies. The core issue is whether or not society can offer its citizens welfare-state guarantees and still preserve the liberal vision of a norm-based legal system. Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer, in an age dominated by Hitler and Stalin, sought to establish a sound theoretical basis for the "rule of law" ideal. As an outcome of their sophisticated understanding of the liberal political tradition, their writings suggest a theoretical missed opportunity, an alternative critical theory that might usefully be applied in understanding (and perhaps countering) the contemporary trend toward the deformalization of law.

Based on doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. --Page vii.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. This book is an examination of the effect of contemporary wars (such as the 'War on Terror') on civil life at a global level. Contemporary literature on war is mainly devoted to recent changes in the theory and practice of warfare, particular those in which terrorists or insurgents are involved (for example, the 'revolution in military affairs', 'small wars', and so on). On the other hand, today's research on security is focused, among other themes, on the effects of the war on terrorism, and on civil liberties and social control. This volume connects these two fields of research, showing how 'war' and 'security' tend to exchange targets and forms of action as well as personnel (for instance, the spreading use of private contractors in wars and of military experts in the 'struggle for security') in modern society. This shows how, contrary to Clausewitz's belief war should be conceived of as a "continuation of politics by other means", the opposite statement is also true: that politics, insofar as it concerns security, can be defined as the 'continuation of war by other means'. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, war and conflict studies, terrorism studies, sociology and IR in general. Salvatore Palidda is Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Genoa. Alessandro Dal Lago is Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Genoa.

Cyprus is a postcolonial island known for natural gas reserves and ethnic divisions. This volume presents a fresh perspective on the Cyprus problem by examining the societal transformations taking place within the island: socioeconomic development, population transitions and migration, and rapidly changing social and political institutions.

Okinawan life, at the crossroads of American militarism and Japanese capitalism, embodies a fundamental contradiction to the myth of the monoethnic state. Suspended in a state of exception, Okinawans have never been officially classified as colonial subjects of the Japanese empire or the United States, nor have they ever been treated as equal citizens of Japan. As a result, they live amid one of the densest concentrations of U.S. military bases in the world. By bringing Foucauldian biopolitics into conversation with Japanese Marxian theorizations of capitalism, Alegal uncovers Japan’s determination to protect its middle class from the racialized sexual contact around its mainland bases by displacing them onto Okinawa, while simultaneously upholding Okinawa as a symbol of the infringement of Japanese sovereignty figured in terms of a patriarchal monoethnic state. This symbolism, however, has provoked ambivalence within Okinawa. In base towns that facilitated encounters between G.I.s and Okinawan women, the racial politics of the United States collided with the postcolonial politics of the Asia Pacific. Through close readings of poetry, reportage, film, and memoir on base-town life since 1945, Shimabuku traces a continuing failure to “become Japanese.” What she discerns instead is a complex politics surrounding sex work, tipping with volatility along the razor’s edge between insurgency and collaboration. At stake in sovereign power’s attempt to secure Okinawa as a military fortress was the need to contain alegality itself—that is, a life force irreducible to the legal order. If biopolitics is the state’s attempt to monopolize life, then Alegal is a story about how borderland actors reclaimed the power of life for themselves. In addition to scholars of Japan and Okinawa, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonialism, militarism, mixed-race studies, gender and sexuality, or the production of sovereignty in the modern world.

Nishikawa explores how international norms have been adopted in the local context in Myanmar to project a certain international image, while in fact the authorities are exploiting these norms to protect their own interests. In the liberal international world order promoted since the end of the Cold War, democracy, rule of law and human rights have become key components in state and peace-building around the world. Many donor governments and international organisations have promoted them in their aid and assistance. However, the promotion of these international norms is based on a flawed understanding of sovereignty and the world. For this reason, the enforcement of these international norms in Myanmar not only fails to protect vulnerable people but also, in some instances, exacerbates the situation, thereby generating critical insecurity to the most vulnerable people. A vital resource for scholars of Myanmar’s politics, as well as a valuable case study for International Relations scholars more broadly.

In an emergency, statesmen concentrate power and suspend citizens' rights. These emergency powers are ubiquitous in the crisis government of liberal democracies, but their nature and justification is poorly understood. Based on a pluralist conception of political ethics and political power, this book shows how we can avoid the dangers and confusions inherent in the norm/exception approach that dominates both historical and contemporary debate. The book shows how liberal values need never - indeed must never - be suspended, even in times of urgency. Only then can accountability remain a live possibility. But at the same time, emergency powers can sometimes be justified with reference to extra-liberal norms that also operate in times of normalcy. By emphasizing the continuity between times of normalcy and emergency, the book illuminates the norms of crisis government, broadening our understanding of liberal democratic government and of political ethics in the process.