Sovereign power after September 11

Barca, Emre and Diken, Bulent (2020) Sovereign power after September 11. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The day of September 11, 2001 has been widely acknowledged as a day on which a major historical event took place. The reason behind the grandiosity of this certain date was the ‘unexpected’ terrorist attacks against the US, causing the death of almost 3,000 people and the following wars as well as the changing social and political policies in one direction: War on Terror. Post-September 11 did not only cause literal wars but also domestically ruined the so- called balance between freedom and security in favour of a more powerful, unaccountable, interventionist, lawless and violent state. This was nothing but the sign of sovereign power at work in many states, which does not only opportunistically utilise the post-September 11 conditions to gain more power and weaken their opponents but also use it as a government technique sometimes against their own society. Nearly two decades after the event, this research tries to look at post-September 11 responses and how those responses changed our world. In this regard, this is a research about near history; not a historical research but a theoretical one about a continuing past, a past that is present in several ways: either as a residual or an active wound. It’s about the history of the present.