Comment archive

Friday, 9 Nov 2018
A Political Economy of ‘the Exception’? A comment to Jacqueline Best

One of the most noteworthy responses to the election of Donald J. Trump came from politically radical African-Americans. In light of the longue durée of racial supremacy and the experience of those exploited by America’s economic system, it was not surprising or exceptional that aracist, misogynist, xenophobic plutocrat could succeed the ...

Friday, 9 Nov 2018
'Security, Economy, Population' - A response to Owens and Collier

What are the analytical and political stakes of thinking about political economic practice through the lens of exceptionalism? These I take to be the fundamental questions underlying the very insightful comments by Patricia Owens and Stephen Collier, two scholars whose work I greatly admire, on my Security Dialogue article ‘Security, Economy, ...

Monday, 5 Feb 2018
Taking "Militarism" Seriously in Critical Security Studies- Renaissance of a Concept?

By Bryan Mabee and Srdjan Vucitec The word “militarism” has seen better days. Judging by Google Books’ Ngram Viewer, it first entered into the vernacular in the nineteenth century, first in Spanish, then in French, Italian and Russian, then in English and German. The word reached its zenith in these ...

Wednesday, 13 Dec 2017
The Political Economic Logic of Liberal Exceptionalism

By Jacqueline Best These are interesting times for scholars interested in the concept of “exceptionalism” and emergency. As I have pointed to in my recent article in Security Dialogue, “Security, economy, population: The political economic logic of liberal exceptionalism,” prior to the recent wave of right-leaning election wins it seemed ...