Sovereign Destruction: On Life and Death in Politics
Sovereign Destruction: On Life and Death in Politics

Summary/Abstract: Achille Mbembe and Adriana Cavarero offer two very profound neologisms –necropoliticsand horrorism – that can equip one with a better understanding of life and death in themodern political community or sovereign unit (as in the case of the nation-state). If one goesthrough the rupture of thinking modern sovereignty following the Foucaultian inversion ofwar as the continuation of politics by other means, the place of violence is inevitable. What isconsidered as sovereign order in the same time is the place that was violently occupied, uponwhich was decided that will represent the constitution of power and the rule of a figure that inmodern perspective is the rule of body politic i.e. of the sovereign. Thus, what was emphasizedas a concern regarding modern sovereign rule opting towards material destruction of humanbodies and populations, most certainly helps to explain contemporary political violence. Alsowhat else is recognized are all other forms of war, all its extensions in every political community,since what war bears is not always and only terror, it is horror above all as an even moreprofound and at the same time excessive violence that spreads over war scenes.

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