Rights statement: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/world-is-a-garden-nomos-sovereignty-and-the-contested-ordering-of-life/70E143EC2E8A27335219916D19428FC0 The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Review of International Studies, 45, 5, pp 870-890 2019, © 2019 Cambridge University Press.
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The world is a garden
T2 - Nomos, sovereignty, and the (contested) ordering of life
AU - Mabon, Simon
N1 - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/world-is-a-garden-nomos-sovereignty-and-the-contested-ordering-of-life/70E143EC2E8A27335219916D19428FC0 The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Review of International Studies, 45, 5, pp 870-890 2019, © 2019 Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Traditional approaches to questions about nomos in IR typically focus upon either its establishment and the formal structures that emerge through interaction within a clearly delineated spatial area, or an exploration of US hegemony in the post-2003 world. In this article I posit a different approach, building on the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, which grounds nomos as a spatialisation of the exception within conditions of neoliberal modernity. I suggest that within the global nomos are more localised nomoi. These localised nomoi are a consequence of the spatialisation of the exception and a fundamental tension between localisation and ordering. I argue that while sovereign power has been a source of contemporary scholarship, such explorations have paid scant attention to the regulatory power of normative values and their capacity to create order within space. Such norms allow for a greater awareness of how sovereign power can be mobilised in and of itself as a form of contestation. Locating such debates in the Middle East, I explore the concept of nomos to understand how struggle over the localisation and ordering of space helps us to better understand contemporary political life.
AB - Traditional approaches to questions about nomos in IR typically focus upon either its establishment and the formal structures that emerge through interaction within a clearly delineated spatial area, or an exploration of US hegemony in the post-2003 world. In this article I posit a different approach, building on the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, which grounds nomos as a spatialisation of the exception within conditions of neoliberal modernity. I suggest that within the global nomos are more localised nomoi. These localised nomoi are a consequence of the spatialisation of the exception and a fundamental tension between localisation and ordering. I argue that while sovereign power has been a source of contemporary scholarship, such explorations have paid scant attention to the regulatory power of normative values and their capacity to create order within space. Such norms allow for a greater awareness of how sovereign power can be mobilised in and of itself as a form of contestation. Locating such debates in the Middle East, I explore the concept of nomos to understand how struggle over the localisation and ordering of space helps us to better understand contemporary political life.
U2 - 10.1017/S0260210519000172
DO - 10.1017/S0260210519000172
M3 - Journal article
VL - 45
SP - 870
EP - 890
JO - Review of International Studies
JF - Review of International Studies
SN - 0260-2105
IS - 5
ER -