Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe

Necropolitics Overview

• The essence of sovereignty is the power to determine who lives and who dies, making death a crucial aspect of political authority.
• Achille Mbembe critiques traditional sovereignty definitions confined to nation-states and highlights the relationship between sovereignty and biopower.
• The essay aligns with Michel Foucault’s theories on biopower and critiques how modernity's concepts of sovereignty have evolved in relation to war and death.

Biopower and Sovereignty

• Biopower describes the control over life that political institutions exert, intertwining life and death with the exercise of power.
• Sovereignty extends beyond traditional structures, embracing the idea that politics and violence are intrinsically linked, particularly in wartime contexts.
• The state of exception is highlighted as a framework where normal laws are suspended, allowing for extreme measures, reminiscent of scenarios in totalitarian regimes.

Death Camps as Political Metaphors

• Death camps serve as radical examples of sovereign violence and absolute power dynamics, where the reduction of individuals to “bare life” occurs.
• Giorgio Agamben's analysis suggests that these camps exemplify how the state of exception becomes a permanent feature, outside usual legal constructs.

Modernity and Sovereignty

• Modernity is described as generating diverse sovereignty concepts, often overlooked by critiques predominantly focused on normative democratic theories.
• A dichotomy between reason and passion shapes contemporary political ideologies, further complicating how life and death are politically navigated.

Hegelian Perspectives on Death and Subjectivity

• Hegel's philosophy connects death to the process of becoming a subject, emphasizing that confronting death is essential for human self-discovery and historical movement.
• Death is seen not merely as destruction but as integral to the realization of human spirit and identity.

Georges Bataille’s Insights

• Bataille shifts the discourse on death and sovereignty, framing them as a relationship of excess rather than mere negation.
• Asserts that death amplifies vitality, and life only gains meaning through its interplay with death, pushing boundaries of societal prohibitions.

The Right to Kill and Racism in Biopower

• The exercise of sovereignty is closely linked to the normative right to kill, where states justify violence against defined “enemies.”
• Foucault posits that racism is a technology facilitating biopower, dictating who is deemed worthy of life or death within the societal framework.

Nazi State as a Case Study

• The Nazi regime illustrates a thorough application of sovereign power manifested as a right to kill, intertwining life management with systematic extermination.
• The regime embodies the extremes of biopolitical governance, exemplifying how state power consolidates the right to take life in pursuit of ideological objectives.

Politics in a State of Emergency

• A continuous state of emergency enables states to exercise power through violence, positioning death as a political tool.
• Biopower operationalizes the division of populations into groups, often based on racial lines, regulating who deserves protection versus who can be sacrificed.### War, Politics, and Sovereignty
• The Nazi state's unique conflation of war, politics, and violence reflects deep-rooted perceptions of the Other as a mortal threat, emphasizing biopolitical elimination for security.
• Traditional critiques of modernity interrogate the intertwining of nihilism, reification of humanity, and the dominance of impersonal logic within political relations.

Historical Context of Modern Terror

• Analysts link Nazi extermination practices to historical colonial imperialism and industrial advancements in killing technologies developed between the Industrial Revolution and World War I.
• Enzo Traverso identifies gas chambers as the result of a prolonged process of dehumanization, integrating instrumental rationality and modern bureaucratic practices.

Enlightenment, Mastery, and Emancipation

• Enlightenment narratives of truth and error contribute to the violent outcomes in modernity, as seen in Marx's conflation of labor with the historical self-creation of humanity.
• Marx's vision of communism necessitates the abolition of commodity relations, positing that this transformation can lead to violent processes, including labor militarization and revolutionary terror.

The Role of Slavery in Biopolitics

• Plantation slavery serves as an early manifestation of biopolitical experimentation, marked by absolute domination, social death, and a paradoxical state of exception.
• Slaves experience a loss of rights and political status, yet maintain agency through expressions of humanity, such as music and cultural resilience.

Colonial Terror Formation and Race

• Colonial sovereignty often operates outside legal frameworks, embodying a power dynamic characterized by the ongoing subjugation and violence against colonized peoples.
• Historical practices, such as forced sterilization and racial selection, illustrate the colonial origins of modern technologies of violence linked to Nazism.

European Juridical Order and War

• The European juridical order (Jus publicum Europaeum) is founded on principles of state equality and territorial sovereignty that rationalize warfare and violence.
• The distinction between 'civilized' states and colonies frames colonial populations as inherently savage, justifying a different legal and moral approach towards violence and war.### Colonial Warfare and Sovereignty
• Colonies operate outside the norms of mutual respect among sovereign subjects, lacking distinction between combatants and noncombatants.
• Peace is impossible in this context; colonies embody a state of perpetual war and disorder both internally and externally.
• Colonial environments allow for the suspension of judicial order, with state violence viewed as necessary for "civilization."

Racial Denial and Perception of the Colonized

• Colonizers perceive the indigenous population as devoid of human characteristics, likening them to nature and animal life.
• This perception creates a moral disconnection, allowing violence against the colonized without recognition of murder.
• The concept of "savage" life fuels a justification for extreme measures taken by colonial powers.

Nature of Colonial Power

• Sovereign rights in colonies permit arbitrary actions, including killing without rule, rendering colonial warfare lawless.
• Colonial terror merges with fantasies of wilderness and death, creating a blurred line between war and peace.
• The outcome of colonial conflict is often predicated on absolute hostility rather than traditional concepts of warfare having definitive ends.

Historical Context and Imperialism

• Historical imperialism aimed to dismantle local powers and install new control mechanisms, facilitated by technology (e.g., gunboats, railroads).
• Colonial occupation entails defining and enforcing new social and spatial relations, resulting in segmentation and resource extraction.
• Sovereignty exercised in colonies often relegates inhabitants to a state between subjecthood and objecthood, demonstrated through socio-political structures.

Apartheid and Urban Control

• The apartheid regime in South Africa exemplifies the structural oppression of black populations through designated townships and homelands.
• Townships serve as spatial institutions designed for control, fostering severe poverty, racial oppression, and limited land rights for black individuals.

Frantz Fanon’s Insights

• Fanon describes colonial occupation as a spatial division, marked by boundaries defined by force and exclusivity.
• He illustrates the colonized space as fraught with hardship, where basic needs remain unmet and humanity is eroded.

Necropower and Modern Colonial Occupation

• Late-modern colonialism incorporates disciplinary, biopolitical, and necropolitical elements, combining violence with governance.
• Contemporary examples, such as Palestine, reflect how narratives of history and identity justify colonial actions, entrenching claims to sovereignty through divine right.
• Competing narratives between populations complicate notions of territory, often leading to violence fueled by religious or cultural striving for exclusivity.

Explore the concepts and arguments presented in Achille Mbembe's influential essay 'Necropolitics'. This quiz covers key themes, critical analysis, and the context of the article published in Public Culture. Test your understanding and dive into the philosophical discussions surrounding power and mortality.