Counterterrorism and the Politics of Violence.

The paper traces the pursuit of sovereign power by the Bush administration, particularly as it is related to the War on Terrorism and designations of enemy and unlawful combatants, in which claims of sovereign authority seek to constitute political authority through demonological discourse, exceptional circumstances, and decisionist proclamations. Through a discursive analysis of the words of the War on Terrorism, the paper argues that the work of Carl Schmitt provides a conceptual frame for interpeting the antagonisms the Bush administration strategically cultivates and their valences. As well, Michael Rogin’s critique of political demonology and countersubversion works to situate contemporary counterterrorism into historical currents that offer further grounds for resisting the terms of counterterrorism and its dictates. The paper explores the mirroring of the foe that is the hallmark of the countersubversive imagination, and turns to Michel Foucault to interrogate forms of power less tied to sovereignty. The paper concludes by thinking Rogin and Foucault together on the topic of surveillance; just as ?political repression went underground, intimidating by its invisibility? in Rogin’s history, Foucault saw in the adoption of (often covert) surveillance technologies in institutional, public, and private settings a form of power that worked best by being most anonymous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]