Library Addition: Claes Wrangel – The Universalism of U.S. Exceptionalism

Claes Wrangel (2009) The Universalism of U.S. Exceptionalism; Deconstructing Security Through Notions of Justice, Freedom and Truth, Stockholm: Stockholm University.

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Introduction:

Sovereignty of the nomos [is defined] by means of […] a scandalous unification of two essentially antithetical principles that the Greeks called Bia and Dikē, violence and justice. Nomos is the power that, ‘with the strongest hand’, achieves the paradoxical union of these opposites.
–Giorgio Agamben, 1998: 31

How do we understand the apparent tension that exists between the U.S.’ dominant power and violence on the world stage and the U.S.’ much-voiced concerns of universal freedom and human dignity – indeed of promotion of the very international laws that the U.S. itself has been so keen to violate? How has, following Agamben’s epigraph above, the U.S. become the nomos of the international society – a sovereign power having achieved the ‘paradoxical union’ of violence and justice – normally considered as opposite logics of politics.

What this thesis analyzes is how U.S. dominant power during the George W. Bush presidency have been made possible through idealistic notions of universality. What borders are drawn towards its Other(s) and what function(s) do these borders fill in relation to the much-desired universality? But more importantly, what are the conditions of possibility of this ‘politics of deliverance’?

In my view, this simultaneous (and contradictory) presence of idealism and ‘hard’ power within U.S. foreign policy has to be analyzed and theorized in its entirety. Additionally, the effect that idealistic universalism brings about might be even more powerful and violent than what would have been the case with an explicit real-politik. If indeed the U.S. was only in hunt of national interest, then the end-point of its project would be clear in sight (relative gains, as the realist school informs us) – and resistance towards it would be easily articulated. However, the universalistic/idealistic connotations render the security narrative open-ended – not resting until ‘eternal’ security/freedom is upon us. Furthermore, such a security context may marginalize efforts of resistance or alternatively turn such efforts equally universalistic, as in the case of Al-Qaeda (Behnke, 2004). Therefore, attention to this universalistic idealism is pressing.

Furthermore, this thesis aims to contribute to an already vibrant discussion within the post-structural body of theory regarding the possibility of normative critique. Much have been said already about this War on Terror. For instance, Drucilla Cornell (2005) fears that it has foreclosed the future. And Judith Butler (2004), echoing Cornell’s concerns, have argued vividly for opening up universalist discourses.

In contrast, I would argue that such critique falls short of its goal, since, arguably, all discourses are essentially open in character – even those articulating the War on Terror, which the empirical analysis of this thesis shows. Hence, lack of openness cannot be a criteria for post-structural critique. In my view, the way forward could lie with surrendering the strategy of opening up, and instead put focus on which logics of articulation are used to deal with the inevitable ambiguity created by the non-fixity of universalism, i.e. by the term’s essential emptiness. Questions that would need further contemplation would then include how identification, desire and lack can be theoretically and strategically articulated without creating antagonisms and violent borders?

Claes Wrangel

For clarifiaction on references, see reference list in paper.