In the sovereign machine: sovereignty,governmentality, automaticity

Abstract

This essay explores a series of sovereign ‘machines’ – slaves, puppets, automata – in political theory from Benjamin to Agamben. It is now well-documented that the philosophical question of ‘the machine’ – of whether a complex system requires a human operator or whether it can function autonomously – is also a crucial political question that haunts every discussion of sovereignty from Hobbes onwards. However, my wager in what follows is that this machine is not just a metaphor for a metaphysical situation – whether it be rationality (Hobbes), bureaucratization (Weber), neutralization (Schmitt), historicism (Benjamin) or governmentality (Foucault) – but a material phenomenon that carries transformative political promise and threat. To summarize the argument of this essay, I contend that ‘sovereign machines’ like slavery (Aristotle, Hegel, Kojève, Agamben), puppets, automata or clockwork (Descartes, Hobbes, Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida), lens, optics and mirrors (Hobbes, Kantorowicz, Benjamin, Lacan, Foucault) and so on do not merely reflect but change our understanding of the causal relationship between sovereignty and governmentality, decision and norm, exception and rule. If the self-appointed task of the modern political theorist has so often been to obtain or regain sovereignty of, or over, the machine – to jam its gears – I seek to expose what the later Derrida calls the ‘machine’ of sovereignty itself. In conclusion, I argue that political theory’s attempt to reveal or retroactively invent the sovereign person at the heart of the machine only ends up revealing the sovereign machine at the heart of the person. What – if anything – is really inside the machine of sovereignty?     

Coming-Out Narratives Across Generations

This study is a thematic analysis of narratives about the coming-out process. Participants (N = 30) were part of a stratified random sample of a large data set generated from a research project investigating changes in the coming-out process over time. Participants were 15 women and 15 men from 5 age cohorts (ages 18 to 74) who self-identified as members of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) communities. Themes related to the struggles and rewards of going through the coming-out process are explored in these narratives. Organizing themes of those who figured it out in their heads and those who figured it out in their hearts emerged from this analysis and suggest two paths to coming out. Generational themes are also explored in this analysis. This study aims to provide contextualization to the diverse experiences of LGB people in the coming-out experience.     

The World Social Forum: Another World Might Be Possible

First, I briefly examine the genesis of debate to define the World Social Forum (WSF) as a contributor to the global justice movement (GJM), since its emergence in Brazil in 2001. I then consider Geoffrey Pleyers' argument identifying a central tension within the WSF, and the GJM in general, between actors seeking to achieve non-domination by expressing anti-power subjectivity and those for whom the path to non-domination lay in strategising and designing counter-powers. Describing what transpired at WSF Dakar 2011and debates since, I question Pleyers' classificatory schema as leading to an unhelpful essentialism. That is, identifying a ‘two paths’ ideal-type and setting out to locate it in the world serves to legitimise one ‘tendency’ of progressive social movements. By contrast with Pleyers' evenly balanced approach—treating of each ‘path’ as possessing the same positive and negative qualities, rather than as qualitatively different moments in the practice of opposing domination—I find that what he calls ‘the path of subjectivity’ might rather be understood as the product of a certain lack of appreciation of the nature of the demands that opposing political tyranny places upon particpants in an organisation or movement.     

Providing alternatives to infant institutionalisation in Bulgaria: How gatekeeping can benefit from a social development orientation

There is extensive research demonstrating the negative effects of institutionalisation on infants. Gatekeeping has been widely promoted as a key strategy to combat unnecessary institutionalisation. Its aim is to provide a range of services and a system of decision making based on assessments of children and families to ensure effective targeting of services. This paper provides details of research into the gatekeeping system in Bulgaria for children under three and examples from recent Bulgarian and international practice. It suggests that gatekeeping could benefit from a social development orientation including activities to combat poverty and promote social inclusion through supporting community and family strengths. The paper proposes changes to the orientation of gatekeeping for effective national strategies to combat institutionalisation.     

Policing in Johannesburg after apartheid

This paper traces the genealogy of the “double paradigm shift” that transformed policing in Johannesburg after apartheid: from public to private and from reactive to proactive. The emergence of a market for residential security services led to the growth of a private security industry and a reconfiguration of urban governance. Responding to a growing demand for “proactive” security services, private security companies have recently begun innovating with new approaches to preventative security. These companies operate in a liminal zone of questionable legality, targeting poor black men as potential criminals to be excluded from the neighbourhoods of their clients.     

The functional capacity of healthcare workers with history of severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (SARS) complicated with avascular necrosis--case report

Two years after the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, 128 healthcare workers continued to present with musculoskeletal complaints and 38 workers were diagnosed with avascular necrosis (AVN) in different joints. 13 healthcare workers were referred to six designated Physiotherapy Departments of the Hospital Authority for a tailor-made standardized Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) from 2004 to 2005 on a voluntary basis. Job analysis, workers' self-perceived disability and functional capacity, non-material handling tests, and the cardiopulmonary fitness test were performed. Retrospective review of the FCE data showed that there were 17 AVN of hips, 16 AVN of knees, 3 AVN of shoulders. All patients had AVN of lower limb joints. Nearly full ranges of movement (ROM) were observed in the knees involved, but the hip range was decreased for most subjects suffering from hip AVNs. Most workers (n=12) could not complete the cardiopulmonary test due to intolerable joint pain. Six workers' self-perceived physical demands level (PDC) matched with the physical demands level identified by the FCE. 12 healthcare workers attained a sedentary physical demands level and were unable to match with their previous job demands. One staff was classified as light physical demands and managed his original duty. Four workers had returned to work at the time FCE was performed. The tailor-made FCE added information to facilitate the return-to-work planning for the staff. Four more workers returned to work with modified duties one year after the FCE.     

Staging language: An introduction to the sociolinguistics of performance

Staged performance involves the overt, scheduled identification and elevation of one or more people to perform, with a clearly demarcated distinction between them and the audience. It involves the agentive use of language, building on the foundation of existing social meanings. Staged performances tend to be linguistically stylized, pushing the limits of language creativity. They have the potential to trigger significant sociolinguistic effects, circulating novel forms and contributing to language change. The paradigms used in this theme issue for approaching language performance include Bakhtin's notion of Stylization, Bell's Audience and Referee Design, Silverstein's Indexicality, Agha's Enregisterment, and Bauman's construct of Discursive Culture. Themes that run through the articles include: a concept of identity that is part product, part process; the centrality of the audience; the reflexivity of staged performance; and the importance of non‐linguistic modalities such as music and appearance. The language analysis in this collection of papers concentrates mainly on phonological features of varieties of English, finding instances of selectivity, mis‐realization, overshoot and undershoot in their performances of a range of targeted dialects.     

Commitment to the union: a survey of research and the implications for industrial relations and trade unions

This paper presents an overview of the literature on union commitment. The aim is to survey the main approaches, findings and implications of the research. The nature and dimensionality of union commitment are examined, and the antecedents and consequences of union commitment are discussed in detail, including a review of the implications for union participation. There is also a discussion of the possibility of dual commitment to union and employer, and of the 'multiple constituencies' view of commitment. An attempt is made to link the union commitment findings to the wider industrial relations literature on, for example, why people join unions and the 'union renewal' thesis. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the literature for union–management relationships and for unions themselves, and with some suggestions for future research.