Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I examine here one of the most potent languages of fear in modern politics, that of security, and ask why security offers the most powerful justification for the suppression of rights. Using Hobbes as my touchstone, I make three claims. First, that the language of security empowers the state, in theory, to define threats to the public safety however the state sees fit, but contrary to what Hobbes envisioned, the state that defines those threats is not -- and cannot be -- separate from the pressures and interests of the subjects or citizens of the state. Second, that the language of security, particularly the language of imminent threats, provides states with a ready-made justification for exaggerating threats. And, third, that the language of security demands from the state a unity of will and judgment that no state, not even the most authoritarian, is ever in a position to provide. The combination of these three elements creates for a dangerous combination: of a theory of security as a universal, neutral good that the state provides universally and neutrally, and of a reality of security as a partial, controversial good that no state provides universally or neutrally. It is in the gap between the theory and the reality of security that the suppression of rights arises.