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Rehearsals of The Sovereign

States of Exception and Threat Governmentality

Bridgewater College, Virginia, USA

The attacks of 9/11 have been generally viewed as a traumatic, historical rupture, ushering in the ‘war on terror’ as well as a warfare/security state in the US. Yet close attention to police practices on urban streets suggests that the actions of the state in this context are not without precedent. This article links apparently divergent situations in order to track the persistence of a rationality of government, which I call ‘threat governmentality’. Concerned with security and the management of risk, and fi xating on racialized bodies, threat governmentality comprises repressive violence on the part of police and civilians, and public discourse after the fact of such violence, in which the relative criminality of the victims—and hence the relative value of their lives—is debated. Rather than a post–9/11 invention, I argue that this rationality represents what Agamben called the ‘nomos of the political space’ in which we live.

Key Words: governmentality • police • race • security • urban

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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Chappell, B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?