Between Sovereignty and Biopolitics: The Case of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
Between Sovereignty and Biopolitics: The Case of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates the so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ employed by US officials in the course of the War on Terror. Drawing on Foucault’s analytics of power, the paper argues that these methods should be conceived as a result of the interaction between sovereign power and biopolitics. It demonstrates that unlike in the past, when sovereignty could impose its will without any considerations, nowadays sovereign manifestations are intertwined with biopolitical rationality. In the case of enhanced interrogation techniques we thus witness a mixture and an overlap of different modalities of power which mutually influence each other. The paper further argues that the interferences of biopolitical concerns account for major changes that occurred in relation to bodily sanctions imposed by sovereign power. The salience of biopolitical rationality and its interactions with sovereignty thus rendered only certain categories of people ‘torture-able’, led to the partial concealment of the discussed techniques from the public gaze, and brought about the relative restraint exercised by sovereign power when handling its enemies.

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