The War on Terror and the State of Exception Paradigm

This thesis seeks to investigate the global paradigm that exists in the War on Terror. It will do so over several steps, starting with the second chapter which will first document the history, both in the field of International Relations and of global politics, before 9/11. Afterward it discusses the international reaction and immediate war strategies of the War on Terror. The following section will go into the nuances of the War on Terror that make it distinct from other wars and make it harder to explain by legal and political scholars. In Chapter 3, various research of the State of Exception theory will be presented, including that of: John Locke, Carl Schmitt, Nicos Poulantzas, Michel Foucault, and Giorgio Agamben. This section highlights the strengths of Agamben’s theory over the others in looking at the War on Terror paradigm. In Chapter 4, the Agambenian State of Exception theory will be applied to the empirical reality of the War on Terror. In the Conclusion chapter, this research will reflect on the overall implications that the extra-legal paradigm of State of Exception has on human rights, while also discussing how the theory can be improved to reflect the true globality of the systems in act.