The Politics of Military Force uses discourse theory to examine the dynamics of discursive change that made participation in military operations possible against the background of German antimilitarist culture. Once considered a strict taboo, so-called out-of-area operations have now become widely considered by German policymakers to be without alternative. The book argues that an understanding of how certain policies are made possible (in this case, military operations abroad and force transformation), one needs to focus on processes of discursive change that (...) result in different policy options appearing rational, appropriate, feasible, or even self-evident. Drawing on Essex School discourse theory, the book develops a theoretical framework to understand how discursive change works, and elaborates on how discursive change makes once unthinkable policy options not only acceptable but even without alternative. Based on a detailed discourse analysis of more than 25 years of German parliamentary debates, The Politics of Military Force provides an explanation for: (1) the emergence of a new hegemonic discourse in German security policy after the end of the Cold War (discursive change), (2) the rearticulation of German antimilitarism in the process (ideational change/norm erosion) and (3) the resulting making-possible of military operations and force transformation (policy change). In doing so, the book also demonstrates the added value of a poststructuralist approach compared to the naive realism and linear conceptions of norm change so prominent in the study of German foreign policy and International Relations more generally. (shrink)

This article suggests that humanism is a decisionism in contemporary critical political theory. Despite obvious and multiple differences, leading critical theorists like Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Žižek, Eric Santner, and Jürgen Habermas, among others, share an investment in stabilizing the human being as a ground of the political. This stabilization of the human should concern political theorists, as this article argues, because it uncritically reproduces conceptual affinities between the notion of the human being and sovereign authority. By investing in the stability (...) and centrality of the human being, these theorists perform what will be called, paraphrasing an often neglected argument by Carl Schmitt, a decision to be human. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that Schmitt’s decisionism is not merely circumscribed to sovereignty’s juridico-political dimension, but that it also includes a peculiar commitment to God’s decision to become human in Christ. Against this decisionism as humanism, the article draws on Walter Benjamin, Roberto Esposito, and Jacques Derrida to propose an alternative politics that destabilizes humanity and sovereignty through the emergence of the animal, or what will be called melancholic lycanthropy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFollowing the terrorist attacks against the US in 2001, the Bush administration reaffirmed the Dover ban, the policy that prohibited press coverage of military coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base from conflicts abroad. Conventional wisdom holds that the Bush administration enforced the ban in the hope of maintaining public support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This understanding, though, is incomplete. If the Dover ban were enforced only in response to eroding public opinion, then other coalition states would (...) have responded likewise to this shared incentive. I argue instead that maintaining public support is only one factor among many that led the US to uphold this policy. In addition to considering the influence of factors such as perceived media bias and casualty aversion, I focus on necropolitics and the related impetus for governments to regulate the observation of death. Through this interpretation, part of the American response to the involuntary loss of sovereignty on 9/11 was... (shrink)

Amidst a worsening climate crisis, there is growing public discourse theorising the possible colonisation of outer space to secure a sustainable future for humanity. In the face of these escapist fantasies, political discussion on humanity's relation to the universe is notably limited and primarily frames space exploration as a dangerous Promethean endeavour. While I do not contest this claim, I argue that humanity's technological capabilities and acquired knowledge of the universe can alternatively facilitate an Earth-centred engagement with the Cosmos as (...) a sublime aesthetic experience. I frame the sublime Cosmos and its infinite expanse of dynamic material forces, as a site of resistance against Promethean visions of human mastery and colonisation. I then theorise how the sublime Cosmos can be productively engaged as a source of political imagination and spiritual elevation. Recovering a spiritual attachment to Earth is necessary, for we are irrevocably tied to this rapidly destabilising planet. (shrink)

Is God a Mathematician? By Mario Livio. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. 308 pp. $26.00 (hardcover). ISBN 074329405X. - CHAITIN La Lévitation [Levitation] by Joachim Boufl et. Paris: Jardin de Livres, 2006. 202 pp. ISBN 2-914569-27-0. - ALVARADO My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor. New York: Viking, 2009. 183 pp. ISBN 978-0-670-02074-4. - GROSSO Intermediate States: The Anomalist 13 edited by Patrick Huyghe and Dennis Stacy. San Antonio and New York: Anomalist Books, (...) 2007. 188 pp. $12.95 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-93366-526-9. - CLARK Forbidden Science: Volume Two: Journals 1970–1979 The Belmont Years by Jacques Vallee. Documatica Research, LLC, November 2008. 547 pp. $44.42 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-615-24974-2 - ALEXANDER The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life by Robert O. Becker and Gary Seldon. William Morrow & Co., 1985. 364 pp. (paper). ISBN 978-0-68800-123-0. - DYKSTRA Flying Saucers and Science: A Scientist Investigates the Mysteries of UFOs: Interstellar Travel, Crashes and Government Cover-ups by Stanton T. Friedman. Franklin Lakes, NJ: The Career Press, 2008. 317 pp. $16.99 (paper). ISBN 978-1-60163-011-7. - WOOD Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story by Nick Redfern. Paraview-Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 2005. 256 pp. $14.00 (paper). ISBN 0-7434-9753-8. - CARPENTER Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story by Nick Redfern. Paraview-Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 2005. 256 pp. $14.00 (paper). ISBN 0-7434-9753-8. - HEISER The Tujunga Canyon Contacts by Ann Druffel and D. Scott Rogo. San Antonio and New York: Anomalist Books, 2008. 302 pp. $16.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-93-366533-7. - SANDOW The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic by Hadley Cantril (with a new introduction by Albert H. Cantril). New Brunswick & London: Transaction Publishers, 2005. xxxii + 224 pp. $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-915554-45-3 - HÖVELMANN Article of Interest - ALVARADO. (shrink)