This edited volume questions the widespread resort to illiberal security practices by contemporary liberal regimes since 9/11, and argues that counter-terrorism is embedded into the very logic of the fields of politics and security. Although recent debate surrounding civil rights and liberties in post-9/11 Europe has focused on the forms, provisions and legal consequences of security-led policies, this volume takes an inter-disciplinary approach to explore how these policies have come to generate illiberal practices. The book argues that policies implemented in the name of protection and national security have had a strong effect on civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion - in particular, but not only, since 9/11. The book undertakes detailed sociological enquiries concerning security agencies, and analyses public discourses on the definition of the terrorist threat. In doing so, it aims to show that the current reframing of civil rights and liberties is in part a result of the very functioning of both the political and the security fields, in that it is embedded in a broad array of domestic and transnational political, administrative and bureaucratic stakes.
Author(s): Didier Bigo
Edition: 1
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 208
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 8
Contributors......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 10
1 Understanding (in)security......Page 12
2 Globalized (in)security: The field and the ban-opticon......Page 21
3 Defining the terrorist threat in the post-September 11 era......Page 60
4 ‘Hidden in plain sight’: Intelligence, exception and suspicion after 11 September 2001......Page 111
5 Military activities within national boundaries: The French case......Page 132
6 Military interventions and the concept of the political: Bringing the political back into the interactions between external forces and local societies......Page 157
Select bibliography......Page 189
Index......Page 205
