Risk and the War on Terror

This book offers the first comprehensive and critical investigation of the specific modes of risk calculation that are emerging in the so-called War on Terror. Risk and the War on Terror offers an interdisciplinary set of contributions which debate and analyze both the empirical manifestations of risk in the War on Terror and their theoretical implications. From border controls and biometrics to financial targeting and policing practice, the imperative to deploy public and private data in order to ‘connect the dots’ of terrorism risk raises important questions for social scientists and practitioners alike.How are risk technologies redeployed from commercial, environmental and policing domains to the domain of the War on Terror?How can the invocation of risk in the War on Terror be understood conceptually? Do these moves embody transformations from sovereignty to governmentality; from discipline to risk; from geopolitics to biopolitics?What are the implications of such moves for the populations that come to be designated as ‘risky’ or ‘at risk’?Where are the gaps, ambiguities and potential resistances to these practices?In contrast with previous historical moments of risk measurement, governing by risk in the War on Terror has taken on a distinctive orientation to an uncertain future. This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of international studies, political science, geography, legal studies, criminology and sociology.

"This anthology's broad coverage of the relationship of risk to the war on terror's proliferation of surveillance is extraordinary. The work of this excellent group of scholars is innovative and compelling." - Michael Shapiro, University of Hawaii, USA"Three key themes run through this excellent book, all of which present central challenges to the concept of a liberal democracy. These are: the exponential increase in state access to personal data; the use of that data as a tool for risk analysis by the state and, thirdly, the entry of the precautionary principle (widely supported in environment circles) into policing and counter-terrorism policy fields. The essays included in this volume cover the field fully and intelligently. This book provides an outstanding contribution to literature on the changing nature of liberal governance in the 21st century. It should be required reading for policy makers and analysts as well as all politics students." - Elspeth Guild, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands"This book is a wonderfully thought-provoking and insightful analysis of the genesis and negative effects of risk technologies that have been deployed in connection with the War on Terror and the links of these to other large-scale social phenomena such as globalization. In highlighting these negative effects, the book is sometimes frightening, while also emphasizing the failures, gaps and political resistance that are evident in the deployment of these risk technologies. Risk and the War on Terror is filled with theoretically and empirically fascinating new contributions to our understanding of this crucially important topic." - Tony Porter, McMaster University, Canada, 'This anthology's broad coverage of the relationship of risk to the war on terror's proliferation of surveillance is extraordinary. The work of this excellent group of scholars is innovative and compelling.' - Michael Shapiro, University of Hawaii, USA'Risk and the War on Terror is filled with theoretically and empirically fascinating new contributions to our understanding of this crucially important topic.' - Tony Porter, McMaster University, Canada

Louise Amoore is Lecturer in Political Geography in the Department of Geography at Durham University, UK.Marieke de Goede is Senior Lecturer at the Department of European Studies of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.