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Published Work by Owen D Thomas
British Politics, 2024
Keir Starmer’s moniker of ‘Mr Rules’ captures his deep investment in a rules-based form of politi... more Keir Starmer’s moniker of ‘Mr Rules’ captures his deep investment in a rules-based form of politics that seeks to uphold established standards of probity and competency in public office. Rather than a mere tactic of opposition politics, we argue that it is symptomatic of the juridification of politics. By this we mean the ceding of the terrain of politics to the seemingly superior and separate domains of law and administration. Drawing upon and extending existing analyses of depoliticisation and unpolitics, the juridification of politics marks the abandonment of consciously values-based politics in favour of a reliance upon legal and quasi-legal (i.e. rules, norms, conventions, procedures) means to address substantive matters of public policy. Crucially, we locate this trend as a consequence of the neoliberal way of politics in which the task of governing in a post-ideological age is reduced to administration. This is significant, we conclude, because such an approach is incapable of responding to the intersecting crises confronting national and international politics.
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2024
Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. ... more Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. This article explores the potential of inquiries for the democratic scrutiny of foreign policy, military doctrine, and grand strategy. In recent decades, there have been numerous inquiries into contentious foreign and security policy incidents in Britain, a trend reflected elsewhere in global politics. Inquiries can unveil facts, identify lessons, and rebuild trust. But critics claim that inquiries overlook systemic flaws. Our analysis transcends the usual arguments for or against public inquiries by explaining how inquiries produce knowledge and how this could be improved. We argue that inquiries necessarily involve the following three distinct processes: scandalisation, archivisation, and epistemology. We suggest how future inquiries could overcome extant limitations through a broader scope, diversification of evidence, and methodological pluralism. Such inquiries can play an improved role in promoting reflection and dialogue about a just international order and Britain's role within it.
Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. ... more Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. This article explores the potential of inquiries for the democratic scrutiny of foreign policy, military doctrine, and grand strategy. In recent decades, there have been numerous inquiries into contentious foreign and security policy incidents in Britain, a trend reflected elsewhere in global politics. Inquiries can unveil facts, identify lessons, and rebuild trust. But critics claim that inquiries overlook systemic flaws. Our analysis transcends the usual arguments for or against public inquiries by explaining how inquiries produce knowledge and how this could be improved. We argue that inquiries necessarily involve the following three distinct processes: scandalisation, archivisation, and epistemology. We suggest how future inquiries could overcome extant limitations through a broader scope, diversification of evidence, and methodological pluralism. Such inquiries can play an improved role in promoting reflection and dialogue about a just international order and Britain's role within it.
Transparency and Secrecy in European Democracies - Contested Trade-offs, edited by D. Mokrosinska, 2021
State secrecy is a necessary tool of liberal democratic governance, but public scrutiny of govern... more State secrecy is a necessary tool of liberal democratic governance, but public scrutiny of government is also essential to ensure accountability and good policy-making. The British Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was introduced to promote such goals, giving the public a right of access to all but the most sensitive information. This law is flawed. The law explicitly assumes that the disclosure of official material poses an inherent danger to society and that secrecy works to protect against such harms. The notion that secrecy is also always potentially harmful to those same societal interests is absent. Drawing on recent legal disputes, I show how this imbalance has a profound and paradoxical effect: information that should, in principle, be accessible through the law is always too dangerous to release and is consequently subjected to permanent concealment.
Public Money and Management, 2019
Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry ... more Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry appointment is driven by issue salience, but how this occurs is unclear. The authors suggest that issue salience is driven by: (1) victim relatability, (2) visibility of failings and (3) perceived blameworthiness. This has three significant implications. First, highly salient issues may lead to the appointment of statutory-type inquiries, which might not be the most appropriate form to effectively address the causes of inequality. Second, if wrongdoing against minorities is not sufficiently relatable (as is often the case), there may be insufficient public salience to drive demands for an inquiry. Finally, inquiries may privilege the investigation of blameworthy behaviour and thereby overlook complex systemic flaws.
Security Dialogue, 2019
State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reason... more State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reasonable justification for the concealment. So how can a liberal democracy continue to keep state secrets amidst suspicion that no such justification exists or that, worse, those secrets contain evidence of wrongdoing? This paper maps and critiques the justificatory strategies used by the British state to refuse to disclose secret material related to the 2003 Iraq War, despite widespread accusations of hidden deception and illegality. Through an analysis of the legal discourse that underpins freedom of information and disclosure protocols, the paper shows how the law regulates disclosure through a metaphorical ‘balance’ of public interests. This balance, however, is no balance at all. It is profoundly one-sided because security only features on one side. The law explicitly recognizes that disclosure can create insecurity for public interests, but lacks any recognition of the opposite: the insecurity of secrecy. Rather than security trumping liberal values, this law allows enduring secrecy to be framed, paradoxically, as a means to secure liberal democratic accountability. The significance of this claim is far-reaching as FOI laws in many other countries employ a similar harm-based, one-sided justificatory strategy.
The recent ‘Chilcot’ inquiry judged that British participation in the 2003 Iraq War was neither r... more The recent ‘Chilcot’ inquiry judged that British participation in the 2003 Iraq War was neither right nor necessary. When reading the final report of over 2.6 million words, I warn against seeking accountability solely in terms of intent and individual culpability, such as questioning whether the government deceived the public. There also needs to be an examination the rationalities and power relations that allowed figures such as Tony Blair to believe, and still believe, that the war was for the common good. Doing so reveals how the preemptive logics behind the war endure today.
Since 2003 Britain has embarked on a series of public inquiries into the UK’s participation in th... more Since 2003 Britain has embarked on a series of public inquiries into the UK’s participation in the Iraq War. These inquiries became necessary, in part, because of suspicions that the government had not been open and honest about the case for war. Yet the openness of these inquiries has been obstructed by the imposition of official secrecy. Britain identifies itself as a liberal democracy and as such is expected to act in accordance with publicity, but the persistence of official secrecy calls into question the neat dichotomy between liberal and illiberal states. The government defends official secrecy on the grounds of national security whilst critics claim that this defence is abused to protect individuals from embarrassment. I argue that there is not necessarily a dilemma between publicity and security, rather practices of publicity and practices of official secrecy are both apparatuses of security. The Iraq public inquiries represent a site of contestation between two ‘techniques’ of governing. Crucially I suggest that the suspicion of official secrecy and the act of ‘making public’ is constitutive of a distinctively liberal way of war. Those who demand ‘open government’ may re-inscribe a technique of governing that, when writ large at the level of international relations, supports a central aspect of the British government’s case for war against Iraq.
Critical Security Methods: New frameworks for analysis. Edited by Claudia Aradau, Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal and Nadine Voelkner, London: Routledge, 2014
International Political Sociology, 2014
This paper examines the Indian government’s Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest digi... more This paper examines the Indian government’s Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest digital biometric program in history. UID is intended to provide a new model of security based on a complex interrelation between welfare, identity and rights. The program bears resemblance to the kind of liberal governmentality and biopolitical imperative described by Foucault, yet the program is also inseparable from the specific socio-historic conditions in India that constitute the strategic need for UID. This paper contributes to an ongoing debate as to the suitability of Foucault’s thought for international studies by suggesting a productive line of enquiry in tracing the variance between the rationality of government programs and the technologies of enactment. The paper utilizes three methodological ‘prescriptives’ from Foucault’s concept of the dispositif, which are applied to the case study. This paper argues that the concrete application of the program challenges the perception that biometric technologies can guarantee the identity and inclusion of the political subject when applied across different geographies with different socio-historical conditions. The specific discursive and non-discursive conditions present in the application of UID lead to unexpected political strategies. Whilst India’s UID program seeks to augment the population with the biometric identity necessary for consumer citizenship, frugal government and expanded surveillance, those whose bodies are not ‘readable’ by the biometric technology are excluded. Exactly those subjects that the program aims to help are those that are most likely to be excluded.
in-spire.org
This article examines how biopolitics can be used as a conceptual resource to understand contempo... more This article examines how biopolitics can be used as a conceptual resource to understand contemporary border security. Through a combination of risk profiling technology and biometric surveillance, these controls challenge our modern geopolitical assumptions of how power is exerted at the border, whilst proponents suggest that the technology can preemptively halt harmful travellers. Yet the identities created by risk profiling may be fallible, suggesting opportunities to contest the biometric border and the power it exerts. Drawing and elaborating upon the case studies of biometric border projects within the United States and United Kingdom that have garnered sustained scholarly attention, this article draws on Hardt and Negri, and Agamben, to
Book Reviews by Owen D Thomas
Policy Reports by Owen D Thomas
Press and Media by Owen D Thomas
As Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry findings are published, we should resist what’s become the eas... more As Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry findings are published, we should resist what’s become the easy refrain: “Blair Lied. Thousands Died.”
Papers by Owen D Thomas
British politics, May 16, 2024
Keir Starmer's moniker of 'Mr Rules' captures his deep investment in a rulesbased form of politic... more Keir Starmer's moniker of 'Mr Rules' captures his deep investment in a rulesbased form of politics that seeks to uphold established standards of probity and competency in public office. Rather than a mere tactic of opposition politics, we argue that it is symptomatic of the juridification of politics. By this we mean the ceding of the terrain of politics to the seemingly superior and separate domains of law and administration. Drawing upon and extending existing analyses of depoliticisation and unpolitics, the juridification of politics marks the abandonment of consciously values-based politics in favour of a reliance upon legal and quasilegal (i.e. rules, norms, conventions, procedures) means to address substantive matters of public policy. Crucially, we locate this trend as a consequence of the neoliberal way of politics in which the task of governing in a post-ideological age is reduced to administration. This is significant, we conclude, because such an approach is incapable of responding to the intersecting crises confronting national and international politics.
Secrecy and Society
This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an inte... more This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center "We the Curious" and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of secrecy, and for the benefits of creative and participatory research to foster the (re)theorization of secrecy.
Since 2003 the British state has conducted several public inquiries into the Iraq War. These inqu... more Since 2003 the British state has conducted several public inquiries into the Iraq War. These inquiries have been impeded by official secrecy, justified on the grounds of national security. This leads to an apparent dilemma in which the liberal democratic practice of publicity is balanced against security. I reject this balance. Instead I show how publicity and official secrecy are both apparatuses of security. Indeed the suspicion of official secrecy and the act of publicity is constitutive of liberal war. Thus those who demand 'open government' may reinscribe a technique of governing that supports the British government's case for war against Iraq. 1 I thank Andrew Schaap, John Heathershaw and Tarak Barkawi for their careful and insightful comments on previous versions of the paper. This research is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.
She has published widely on the philosophy and ethics of human rights and previously lived and wo... more She has published widely on the philosophy and ethics of human rights and previously lived and worked with social organisations in Colombia, where she co-authored a book on BP's oilfields. She wrote most of chapter Two and parts of Chapters One, Three and Four and was principle investigator for this project.
Review of International Studies
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define co...
British Politics, 2024
Keir Starmer’s moniker of ‘Mr Rules’ captures his deep investment in a rules-based form of politi... more Keir Starmer’s moniker of ‘Mr Rules’ captures his deep investment in a rules-based form of politics that seeks to uphold established standards of probity and competency in public office. Rather than a mere tactic of opposition politics, we argue that it is symptomatic of the juridification of politics. By this we mean the ceding of the terrain of politics to the seemingly superior and separate domains of law and administration. Drawing upon and extending existing analyses of depoliticisation and unpolitics, the juridification of politics marks the abandonment of consciously values-based politics in favour of a reliance upon legal and quasi-legal (i.e. rules, norms, conventions, procedures) means to address substantive matters of public policy. Crucially, we locate this trend as a consequence of the neoliberal way of politics in which the task of governing in a post-ideological age is reduced to administration. This is significant, we conclude, because such an approach is incapable of responding to the intersecting crises confronting national and international politics.
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2024
Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. ... more Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. This article explores the potential of inquiries for the democratic scrutiny of foreign policy, military doctrine, and grand strategy. In recent decades, there have been numerous inquiries into contentious foreign and security policy incidents in Britain, a trend reflected elsewhere in global politics. Inquiries can unveil facts, identify lessons, and rebuild trust. But critics claim that inquiries overlook systemic flaws. Our analysis transcends the usual arguments for or against public inquiries by explaining how inquiries produce knowledge and how this could be improved. We argue that inquiries necessarily involve the following three distinct processes: scandalisation, archivisation, and epistemology. We suggest how future inquiries could overcome extant limitations through a broader scope, diversification of evidence, and methodological pluralism. Such inquiries can play an improved role in promoting reflection and dialogue about a just international order and Britain's role within it.
Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. ... more Public inquiries into matters of conflict and security are vitally important yet undertheorised. This article explores the potential of inquiries for the democratic scrutiny of foreign policy, military doctrine, and grand strategy. In recent decades, there have been numerous inquiries into contentious foreign and security policy incidents in Britain, a trend reflected elsewhere in global politics. Inquiries can unveil facts, identify lessons, and rebuild trust. But critics claim that inquiries overlook systemic flaws. Our analysis transcends the usual arguments for or against public inquiries by explaining how inquiries produce knowledge and how this could be improved. We argue that inquiries necessarily involve the following three distinct processes: scandalisation, archivisation, and epistemology. We suggest how future inquiries could overcome extant limitations through a broader scope, diversification of evidence, and methodological pluralism. Such inquiries can play an improved role in promoting reflection and dialogue about a just international order and Britain's role within it.
Transparency and Secrecy in European Democracies - Contested Trade-offs, edited by D. Mokrosinska, 2021
State secrecy is a necessary tool of liberal democratic governance, but public scrutiny of govern... more State secrecy is a necessary tool of liberal democratic governance, but public scrutiny of government is also essential to ensure accountability and good policy-making. The British Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was introduced to promote such goals, giving the public a right of access to all but the most sensitive information. This law is flawed. The law explicitly assumes that the disclosure of official material poses an inherent danger to society and that secrecy works to protect against such harms. The notion that secrecy is also always potentially harmful to those same societal interests is absent. Drawing on recent legal disputes, I show how this imbalance has a profound and paradoxical effect: information that should, in principle, be accessible through the law is always too dangerous to release and is consequently subjected to permanent concealment.
Public Money and Management, 2019
Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry ... more Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry appointment is driven by issue salience, but how this occurs is unclear. The authors suggest that issue salience is driven by: (1) victim relatability, (2) visibility of failings and (3) perceived blameworthiness. This has three significant implications. First, highly salient issues may lead to the appointment of statutory-type inquiries, which might not be the most appropriate form to effectively address the causes of inequality. Second, if wrongdoing against minorities is not sufficiently relatable (as is often the case), there may be insufficient public salience to drive demands for an inquiry. Finally, inquiries may privilege the investigation of blameworthy behaviour and thereby overlook complex systemic flaws.
Security Dialogue, 2019
State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reason... more State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reasonable justification for the concealment. So how can a liberal democracy continue to keep state secrets amidst suspicion that no such justification exists or that, worse, those secrets contain evidence of wrongdoing? This paper maps and critiques the justificatory strategies used by the British state to refuse to disclose secret material related to the 2003 Iraq War, despite widespread accusations of hidden deception and illegality. Through an analysis of the legal discourse that underpins freedom of information and disclosure protocols, the paper shows how the law regulates disclosure through a metaphorical ‘balance’ of public interests. This balance, however, is no balance at all. It is profoundly one-sided because security only features on one side. The law explicitly recognizes that disclosure can create insecurity for public interests, but lacks any recognition of the opposite: the insecurity of secrecy. Rather than security trumping liberal values, this law allows enduring secrecy to be framed, paradoxically, as a means to secure liberal democratic accountability. The significance of this claim is far-reaching as FOI laws in many other countries employ a similar harm-based, one-sided justificatory strategy.
The recent ‘Chilcot’ inquiry judged that British participation in the 2003 Iraq War was neither r... more The recent ‘Chilcot’ inquiry judged that British participation in the 2003 Iraq War was neither right nor necessary. When reading the final report of over 2.6 million words, I warn against seeking accountability solely in terms of intent and individual culpability, such as questioning whether the government deceived the public. There also needs to be an examination the rationalities and power relations that allowed figures such as Tony Blair to believe, and still believe, that the war was for the common good. Doing so reveals how the preemptive logics behind the war endure today.
Since 2003 Britain has embarked on a series of public inquiries into the UK’s participation in th... more Since 2003 Britain has embarked on a series of public inquiries into the UK’s participation in the Iraq War. These inquiries became necessary, in part, because of suspicions that the government had not been open and honest about the case for war. Yet the openness of these inquiries has been obstructed by the imposition of official secrecy. Britain identifies itself as a liberal democracy and as such is expected to act in accordance with publicity, but the persistence of official secrecy calls into question the neat dichotomy between liberal and illiberal states. The government defends official secrecy on the grounds of national security whilst critics claim that this defence is abused to protect individuals from embarrassment. I argue that there is not necessarily a dilemma between publicity and security, rather practices of publicity and practices of official secrecy are both apparatuses of security. The Iraq public inquiries represent a site of contestation between two ‘techniques’ of governing. Crucially I suggest that the suspicion of official secrecy and the act of ‘making public’ is constitutive of a distinctively liberal way of war. Those who demand ‘open government’ may re-inscribe a technique of governing that, when writ large at the level of international relations, supports a central aspect of the British government’s case for war against Iraq.
Critical Security Methods: New frameworks for analysis. Edited by Claudia Aradau, Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal and Nadine Voelkner, London: Routledge, 2014
International Political Sociology, 2014
This paper examines the Indian government’s Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest digi... more This paper examines the Indian government’s Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest digital biometric program in history. UID is intended to provide a new model of security based on a complex interrelation between welfare, identity and rights. The program bears resemblance to the kind of liberal governmentality and biopolitical imperative described by Foucault, yet the program is also inseparable from the specific socio-historic conditions in India that constitute the strategic need for UID. This paper contributes to an ongoing debate as to the suitability of Foucault’s thought for international studies by suggesting a productive line of enquiry in tracing the variance between the rationality of government programs and the technologies of enactment. The paper utilizes three methodological ‘prescriptives’ from Foucault’s concept of the dispositif, which are applied to the case study. This paper argues that the concrete application of the program challenges the perception that biometric technologies can guarantee the identity and inclusion of the political subject when applied across different geographies with different socio-historical conditions. The specific discursive and non-discursive conditions present in the application of UID lead to unexpected political strategies. Whilst India’s UID program seeks to augment the population with the biometric identity necessary for consumer citizenship, frugal government and expanded surveillance, those whose bodies are not ‘readable’ by the biometric technology are excluded. Exactly those subjects that the program aims to help are those that are most likely to be excluded.
in-spire.org
This article examines how biopolitics can be used as a conceptual resource to understand contempo... more This article examines how biopolitics can be used as a conceptual resource to understand contemporary border security. Through a combination of risk profiling technology and biometric surveillance, these controls challenge our modern geopolitical assumptions of how power is exerted at the border, whilst proponents suggest that the technology can preemptively halt harmful travellers. Yet the identities created by risk profiling may be fallible, suggesting opportunities to contest the biometric border and the power it exerts. Drawing and elaborating upon the case studies of biometric border projects within the United States and United Kingdom that have garnered sustained scholarly attention, this article draws on Hardt and Negri, and Agamben, to
As Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry findings are published, we should resist what’s become the eas... more As Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry findings are published, we should resist what’s become the easy refrain: “Blair Lied. Thousands Died.”
British politics, May 16, 2024
Keir Starmer's moniker of 'Mr Rules' captures his deep investment in a rulesbased form of politic... more Keir Starmer's moniker of 'Mr Rules' captures his deep investment in a rulesbased form of politics that seeks to uphold established standards of probity and competency in public office. Rather than a mere tactic of opposition politics, we argue that it is symptomatic of the juridification of politics. By this we mean the ceding of the terrain of politics to the seemingly superior and separate domains of law and administration. Drawing upon and extending existing analyses of depoliticisation and unpolitics, the juridification of politics marks the abandonment of consciously values-based politics in favour of a reliance upon legal and quasilegal (i.e. rules, norms, conventions, procedures) means to address substantive matters of public policy. Crucially, we locate this trend as a consequence of the neoliberal way of politics in which the task of governing in a post-ideological age is reduced to administration. This is significant, we conclude, because such an approach is incapable of responding to the intersecting crises confronting national and international politics.
Secrecy and Society
This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an inte... more This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center "We the Curious" and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of secrecy, and for the benefits of creative and participatory research to foster the (re)theorization of secrecy.
Since 2003 the British state has conducted several public inquiries into the Iraq War. These inqu... more Since 2003 the British state has conducted several public inquiries into the Iraq War. These inquiries have been impeded by official secrecy, justified on the grounds of national security. This leads to an apparent dilemma in which the liberal democratic practice of publicity is balanced against security. I reject this balance. Instead I show how publicity and official secrecy are both apparatuses of security. Indeed the suspicion of official secrecy and the act of publicity is constitutive of liberal war. Thus those who demand 'open government' may reinscribe a technique of governing that supports the British government's case for war against Iraq. 1 I thank Andrew Schaap, John Heathershaw and Tarak Barkawi for their careful and insightful comments on previous versions of the paper. This research is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.
She has published widely on the philosophy and ethics of human rights and previously lived and wo... more She has published widely on the philosophy and ethics of human rights and previously lived and worked with social organisations in Colombia, where she co-authored a book on BP's oilfields. She wrote most of chapter Two and parts of Chapters One, Three and Four and was principle investigator for this project.
Review of International Studies
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define co...
![Research paper thumbnail of Johnson, Jamie M., Victoria M. Basham and Owen D. Thomas (2022) ‘Ordering Disorder: The Making of World Politics’, Review of International Studies [Online First]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/84671509/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Review of International Studies, 2022
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define contemporary world politics.
Public Money & Management, 2020
ABSTRACT Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that... more ABSTRACT Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry appointment is driven by issue salience, but how this occurs is unclear. The authors suggest that issue salience is driven by: (1) victim relatability, (2) visibility of failings and (3) perceived blameworthiness. This has three significant implications. First, highly salient issues may lead to the appointment of statutory-type inquiries, which might not be the most appropriate form to effectively address the causes of inequality. Second, if wrongdoing against minorities is not sufficiently relatable (as is often the case), there may be insufficient public salience to drive demands for an inquiry. Finally, inquiries may privilege the investigation of blameworthy behaviour and thereby overlook complex systemic flaws. IMPACT Public inquiries are important tools for lesson learning in the wake of a crisis or controversy. We claim that ‘gold standard’ statutory inquiries tend to be appointed only when a crisis has publicly salient (i.e. relatable) victims, is perceived to be a result of systemic failings, and has blameworthy behaviour. It is important to appreciate that many public sector failures—particularly those in which widepsread inequality is a core concern—will often fail this threefold test, and therfore be misleadingly attributed to technical or individualized explanations, or be overlooked by government.
Security Dialogue, 2019
State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reason... more State secrecy is incompatible with the values of liberal democracy if there is no publicly reasonable justification for the concealment. So how can a liberal democracy continue to keep state secrets amidst suspicion that no such justification exists or that, worse, those secrets contain evidence of wrongdoing? This article maps and critiques the justificatory strategies that were used by the British state to refuse to disclose secret material related to the 2003 Iraq War, despite widespread accusations of hidden deception and illegality. Through an analysis of the legal discourse that underpins freedom of information (FOI) and disclosure protocols, the article shows how the law regulates disclosure through a metaphorical ‘balance’ of public interests. This balance, however, is no balance at all. It is profoundly one-sided because security only features on one side. The law explicitly recognizes that disclosure can create insecurity for public interests, but lacks any recognition of ...
Contemporary Political Theory, 2017
International Political Sociology, 2014
This paper examines the Indian government's Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest ... more This paper examines the Indian government's Unique Identification (UID) program, the largest digital biometric program in history. UID is intended to provide a new model of security based on a complex interrelation between welfare, identity and rights. The program resembles the kind of liberal governmentality and biopolitical imperative described by Foucault, yet it is also inseparable from the specific socio-historic conditions in India that constitute the strategic need for UID. This paper contributes to an ongoing debate as to the suitability of Foucault's thought for international studies by suggesting a productive line of inquiry: tracing the variance between the rationality of government programs and the technologies of enactment. The paper utilizes three methodological “prescriptives” from Foucault's concept of the dispositif, which are applied to the case study. This paper argues that the concrete application of the program challenges the perception that biometric technologies can guarantee the identity and inclusion of the political subject when applied across different geographies with different socio-historical conditions. The specific discursive and non-discursive conditions present in the application of UID lead to unexpected political strategies. While India's UID program seeks to augment the population with the biometric identity necessary for consumer citizenship, frugal government and expanded surveillance, those whose bodies are not “readable” by the biometric technology are excluded. It is exactly those subjects that the program aims to help that are most likely to be excluded.
Politics, 2017
Good faith and (dis)honest mistakes? Learning from Britain's Iraq War Inquiry The recent 'Chilcot... more Good faith and (dis)honest mistakes? Learning from Britain's Iraq War Inquiry The recent 'Chilcot' inquiry judged that British participation in the 2003 Iraq War was neither right nor necessary. When reading the final report of over 2.6 million words, I warn against seeking accountability solely in terms of intent and individual culpability, such as questioning whether the government deceived the public. There also needs to be an examination the rationalities and power relations that allowed figures such as Tony Blair to believe, and still believe, that the war was for the common good. Doing so reveals how the preemptive logics behind the war endure today.
Contemporary Justice Review, 2015
After Snowden and Manning, the CIA torture report and debates about the accountability of the int... more After Snowden and Manning, the CIA torture report and debates about the accountability of the intelligence services, Secrets and Leaks is a timely contribution. Yet, for Sagar, contemporary anxieties about the abuse of secrecy and leaking are nothing new. Rather, at least for US citizens, these problems are rooted in 'silences' left by the framers of the American constitution. The framers intended that the president should have the right to employ secrecy in the public interest, but they 'did not fully explain how citizens and lawmakers could know whether the president is in fact exercising this power responsibly' (p. 49). Sagar's task is to fill this silence. Sagar begins by asking whether better judicial or legislative oversight could be the answer. In the former, Sagar argues that the judiciary cannot and should not decide when executive secrecy should be broken. Courts may lack the insider knowledge to judge claims made by the executive about the likely harm from disclosure (p. 66). Furthermore, Sagar argues that judges should not be asked to decide on an essentially political question about how the community should weigh the costs and benefits of secrecy (p. 70). Instead, the judiciary's role should be limited to making secrecy 'shallow', by ensuring that official justifications for secrecy are sufficiently reasonable and detailed to deter over-zealous concealment (p. 73). This dismissal of judicial oversight (which, comparatively, contrasts with measures found in the United Kingdom) is crucial to the remainder of Sagar's argument. As for congressional oversight, Sagar is again sceptical. There are risks when the president alone weighs the costs and benefits of secrecy, but Sagar explains that placing the responsibility on a legislative body would reproduce these and other risks. Any congressional debate on individual secrets would have to take place in camera. In such circumstances, amidst partisan divides, opportunities for unauthorised leaks would be rifea danger realised by leaks from the 9/11 committee in 2002 (p. 94). The only solution, Sagar claims, would be to limit this closed-door committee to a select few. Yet now this committee would be unable to convincingly explain its reasoning to the public, repeating the conditions of mistrust and secrecy that surround existing oversight practices.
Smith and Nick Vaughan-Williams. Most importantly, I wish to acknowledge and thank my two supervi... more Smith and Nick Vaughan-Williams. Most importantly, I wish to acknowledge and thank my two supervisors: Andrews Schaap and John Heathershaw. Andrew Schaap was instrumental in supporting my original application for funding from the ESRC, and he has given more support and guidance since than I could have wished. I am ever grateful for his patient advice, good humour and dedication. John Heathershaw has also given much time and effort to the supervision of this work. John has always been a source of encouragement and supportive critique. Beyond Exeter, I have been fortunate to present and develop my work through projects and workshops. In early 2010 I was given the opportunity to join the International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies (ICCM). This programme provided a supportive and reflective atmosphere in which to advance my research and I extend my thanks, in particular, to Claudia Aradau, Martin Coward, Eva Herschinger, Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal and Nadine Voelkner. In 2012, I participated in the University of Reading Liberal Way of War Programme Conference; I thank Alan Cromartie for his thoughtful comments on several drafts of this research. In 2014, I was invited to participate in a conference at the European Parliament organised by the Nonviolent Radical Party Transnational and Transparty (NRPTT). The discussions and proceedings from this event helped to my conclusion to this work, and I thank Claudio Radaelli, Matteo Anglioli and Laura Harth for involving me in their continuing campaigns. Several organisation and individuals connected to the Iraq Inquiry have given me their time. Many individuals have asked to remain nameless, but their contributions in interviews and exchanges have been instrumental in guiding my research. Many others including Kate Hudson and the CND, Chris Ames, Stephen Plowden, Sir Menzies Campbell and several members of the inquiry public gallery have also given me their time. I am grateful for the generosity of them all. of the risk of harm to national security. In other words, publicity is balanced against security. The effect is to constitute a kind of blackmail in which one either acknowledges the necessity of trading-off the democratic good of publicity against the need for security, or one objects to this sacrifice and in so doing rejects security entirely. The former, those who defend security, claim the terrain of realism whilst the latter, who fight for publicity, are labelled as feeble idealists who are unwilling to acknowledge what needs to be done to Option one: the state is still a liberal democracy but practicing publicity is not what makes liberal democracy distinctive Option two: the state is not a liberal democracy security, I show how both publicity and secrecy are co-constitutive of security. Frame one: Publicity versus secrecy and security Frame two: Publicity and Secrecy co-constitute Security 'dispositifs. This framework advances the scholarly literature committed a sociological approach to securitization (Neal, 2006; McDonald, 2008; Balzacq, 2010). Fourthly, this thesis offers, for the first time, a detailed explanation of how the UK, is able to justify the endurance of official secrecy through the 'Public Interest Test'. In other words, I show how the UK justifies official secrecy in accordance with liberal values even in the face of widespread suspicion. This thesis opens up a new area of study by analysing the discursive rules that govern public inquiries and freedom of information laws. This informs the Intelligence Studies and Public Policy literature which has, more than any other scholarly literature, paid attention to the tragedy and farce of public inquiries stymied Odysseos,2010). Beyond the Academy, engaging with 'Bliar' This thesis also contributes to the public debate beyond academia about the Iraq Inquiries and the Iraq War. In order to illustrate this public debate, which also reinforces the need to reject the balance metaphor, I will now briefly describe one event from the ongoing Chilcot public inquiry. On 29 th January 2010, a committee of five privy councillors enter a purpose built room in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster. The largest object in the room is a horseshoe shaped table swathed in a dark blue fabric and bristling with microphones, around which the committee sit. The committee are flanked on either side by inconspicuous staff, crowded around smaller tables and immersed in lever-arch folders and laptops. Facing the committee is a rectangular table with identical upholstery, 'It is worth just going to the …and I think-Blair stumbles. '-But forgive me if I mentioned a document and if you haven't …but I think you have got the options paper'. For some time, the committee have been irritated by the government's reluctance to declassify documents pertinent to their inquiry. The committee have full access to such documents, but they can't be shared with the public. The options paper is one of these classified documents but it is also, perversely, freely available. 'The March options paper is in the public domain'. Sir Roderic replies. 'You can get it on the internet'. Introduction 20 A few giggles resonate from the public gallery. The paper had been leaked on the Internet months before. Yet the Labour government now refused to declassify the document-so it could not be shared or discussed in public hearings. 'I'm not certain offhand,' Sir Roderic continues, clearly annoyed, 'whether or not it has been declassified-Sir Roderic looks searchingly toward the inquiry secretary, Margaret Aldred, who shakes her head: it's still officially a secret document. '-by the government which was elected under your leadership'. 'Right', Blair replied sheepishly. 'Maybe I will just say what it told me'. Outside of the QEII centre, crowds had gathered for Blair's hearing. Some had gathered to support the inquiry. A team of cheerleaders guided the crowd in chants, dressed in 'TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR TONY BLAIR' t-shirts. They shouted: 'Give me a W!…Give me an M!…Give me a D!…W.M.D.…No seriously, show us some!' 'If there's one thing that makes us hot, it's tougher questions, GO CHILCOT!' The cheerleaders were been hired by 38 Degrees, an online campaigning group. The night before, a 38 Degrees member visited the home of Sir Roderic Lyne to deliver a cake with an icing message, '12,150 tough questions for Tony Blair', and a petition of questions gathered by the group for the committee to ask in the hearing.