Empire (8 page)

over every element ofthe communicative relationship, all the while

dissolving identity and history in a completely postmodernist fash-

ion.28 Contrary to the way many postmodernist accounts would

have it, however, the imperial machine, far from eliminating master

narratives, actually produces and reproduces them (ideological mas-

ter narratives in particular) in order to validate and celebrate its

own power.29 In this coincidence ofproduction through language,

the linguistic production ofreality, and the language ofself

-

validation resides a fundamental key to understanding the effective-

ness, validity, and legitimation ofimperial right.

Intervention

This new framework of legitimacy includes new forms and new

articulations of
the exercise of legitimate force.
During its formation, the new power must demonstrate the effectiveness of its force at

the same time that the bases ofits legitimation are being constructed.

In fact, the legitimacy of the new power is in part based directly

on the effectiveness of its use of force.

B I O P O L I T I C A L P R O D U C T I O N

35

The way the effectiveness of the new power is demonstrated

has nothing to do with the old international order that is slowly

dying away; nor has it much use for the instruments the old order

left behind. The deployments of the imperial machine are defined

by a whole series ofnew characteristics, such as the unbounded

terrain ofits activities, the singularization and symbolic localization

ofits actions, and the connection ofrepressive action to all the

aspects ofthe biopolitical structure ofsociety. For lack ofa better

term we continue to call these ‘‘interventions.’’ This is merely a

terminological and not a conceptual deficiency, for these are not

really interventions into independent juridical territories but rather

actions within a unified world by the ruling structure ofproduction

and communication. In effect, intervention has been internalized

and universalized. In the previous section we referred to both the

structural means ofintervention that involve the deployments of

monetary mechanisms and financial maneuvers over the transna-

tional field ofinterdependent productive regimes and interventions

in the field of communication and their effects on the legitimation

ofthe system. Here we want to investigate the new f

orms of

intervention that involve the exercise ofphysical force on the part

ofthe imperial machine over its global territories. The enemies that

Empire opposes today may present more ofan ideological threat

than a military challenge, but nonetheless the power ofEmpire

exercised through force and all the deployments that guarantee its

effectiveness are already very advanced technologically and solidly

consolidated politically.30

The arsenal of legitimate force for imperial intervention is

indeed already vast, and should include not only military interven-

tion but also other forms such as moral intervention and juridical

intervention. In fact, the Empire’s powers of intervention might

be best understood as beginning not directly with its weapons of

lethal force but rather with its moral instruments. What we are

calling moral intervention is practiced today by a variety ofbodies,

including the news media and religious organizations, but the most

important may be some ofthe so-called non-governmental organi-

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T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T

zations (NGOs), which, precisely because they are not run directly

by governments, are assumed to act on the basis ofethical or moral

imperatives. The term refers to a wide variety of groups, but we

are referring here principally to the global, regional, and local organi-

zations that are dedicated to reliefwork and the protection ofhuman

rights, such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Me´decins sans

Frontières. Such humanitarian NGOs are in effect (even if this runs

counter to the intentions ofthe participants) some ofthe most

powerful pacific weapons of the new world order—the charitable

campaigns and the mendicant orders ofEmpire. These NGOs con-

duct ‘‘just wars’’ without arms, without violence, without borders.

Like the Dominicans in the late medieval period and the Jesuits at

the dawn ofmodernity, these groups strive to identify universal

needs and defend human rights. Through their language and their

action they first define the enemy as privation (in the hope of

preventing serious damage) and then recognize the enemy as sin.

It is hard not to be reminded here ofhow in Christian moral

theology evil is first posed as privation ofthe good and then sin is

defined as culpable negation ofthe good. Within this logical frame-

work it is not strange but rather all too natural that in their attempts

to respond to privation, these NGOs are led to denounce publicly

the sinners (or rather the Enemy in properly inquisitional terms);

nor is it strange that they leave to the ‘‘secular wing’’ the task of

actually addressing the problems. In this way, moral intervention

has become a frontline force of imperial intervention. In effect, this

intervention prefigures the state ofexception from below, and does

so without borders, armed with some of the most effective means

ofcommunication and oriented toward the symbolic production

ofthe Enemy. These NGOs are completely immersed in the bio-

political context ofthe constitution ofEmpire; they anticipate the

power ofits pacifying and productive intervention ofjustice. It

should thus come as no surprise that honest juridical theorists of

the old international school (such as Richard Falk) should be drawn

in by the fascination of these NGOs.31 The NGOs’ demonstration

ofthe new order as a peaceful biopolitical context seems to have

B I O P O L I T I C A L P R O D U C T I O N

37

blinded these theorists to the brutal effects that moral intervention

produces as a prefiguration ofworld order.32

Moral intervention often serves as the first act that prepares the

stage for military intervention. In such cases, military deployment is

presented as an internationally sanctioned police action. Today

military intervention is progressively less a product ofdecisions that

arise out ofthe old international order or even U.N. structures.

More often it is dictated unilaterally by the United States, which

charges itselfwith the primary task and then subsequently asks its

allies to set in motion a process ofarmed containment and/or

repression ofthe current enemy ofEmpire. These enemies are

most often called terrorist, a crude conceptual and terminological

reduction that is rooted in a police mentality.

The relationship between prevention and repression is particu-

larly clear in the case ofintervention in ethnic conflicts. The conflicts

among ethnic groups and the consequent reenforcement of new

and/or resurrected ethnic identities effectively disrupt the old aggre-

gations based on national political lines. These conflicts make the

fabric of global relations more fluid and, by affirming new identities

and new localities, present a more malleable material for control.

In such cases repression can be articulated through preventive action

that constructs new relationships (which will eventually be consoli-

dated in peace but only after new wars) and new territorial and

political formations that are functional (or rather more functional,

better adaptable) to the constitution ofEmpire.33 A second example

ofrepression prepared through preventive action is the campaigns

against corporative business groups or ‘‘mafias,’’ particularly those

involved in the drug trade. The actual repression ofthese groups

may not be as important as criminalizing their activities and manag-

ing social alarm at their very existence in order to facilitate their

control. Even though controlling ‘‘ethnic terrorists’’ and ‘‘drug ma-

fias’’ may represent the center ofthe wide spectrum ofpolice control

on the part ofthe imperial power, this activity is nonetheless normal,

that is, systemic. The ‘‘just war’’ is effectively supported by the

‘‘moral police,’’ just as the validity ofimperial right and its legitimate

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T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T

functioning is supported by the necessary and continuous exercise

ofpolice power.

It is clear that international or supranational courts are con-

strained to follow this lead. Armies and police anticipate the courts

and preconstitute the rules ofjustice that the courts must then apply.

The intensity ofthe moral principles to which the construction of

the new world order is entrusted cannot change the fact that this

is really an inversion ofthe conventional order ofconstitutional

logic. The active parties supporting the imperial constitution are

confident that when the construction ofEmpire is sufficiently ad-

vanced, the courts will be able to assume their leading role in the

definition ofjustice. For now, however, although international

courts do not have much power, public displays oftheir activities

are still very important. Eventually a new judicial function must be

formed that is adequate to the constitution of Empire. Courts will

have to be transformed gradually from an organ that simply decrees

sentences against the vanquished to a judicial body or system of

bodies that dictate and sanction the interrelation among the moral

order, the exercise ofpolice action, and the mechanism legitimating

imperial sovereignty.34

This kind ofcontinual intervention, then, which is both moral

and military, is really the logical form of the exercise of force that

follows from a paradigm of legitimation based on a state of perma-

nent exception and police action. Interventions are always excep-

tional even though they arise continually; they take the form of

police actions because they are aimed at maintaining an internal

order. In this way intervention is an effective mechanism that

through police deployments contributes directly to the construction

ofthe moral, normative, and institutional order ofEmpire.

Royal Prerogatives

What were traditionally called the royal prerogatives ofsovereignty

seem in effect to be repeated and even substantially renewed in the

construction ofEmpire. Ifwe were to remain within the conceptual

framework of classic domestic and international law, we might be

B I O P O L I T I C A L P R O D U C T I O N

39

tempted to say that a supranational quasi-state is being formed. That

does not seem to us, however, an accurate characterization ofthe

situation. When the royal prerogatives ofmodern sovereignty re-

appear in Empire, they take on a completely different form. For

example, the sovereign function of deploying military forces was

carried out by the modern nation-states and is now conducted by

Empire, but, as we have seen, the justification for such deployments

now rests on a state ofpermanent exception, and the deployments

themselves take the form of police actions. Other royal prerogatives

such as carrying out justice and imposing taxes also have the same

kind ofliminal existence. We have already discussed the marginal

position ofjudicial authority in the constitutive process ofEmpire,

and one could also argue that imposing taxes occupies a marginal

position in that it is increasingly linked to specific and local urgen-

cies. In effect, one might say that the sovereignty of Empire itself

is realized at the margins, where borders are flexible and identities

are hybrid and fluid. It would be difficult to say which is more

important to Empire, the center or the margins. In fact, center

and margin seem continually to be shifting positions, fleeing any

determinate locations. We could even say that the process itselfis

virtual and that its power resides in the power ofthe virtual.

One could nonetheless object at this point that even while

being virtual and acting at the margins, the process ofconstructing

imperial sovereignty is in many respects very real! We certainly do

not mean to deny that fact. Our claim, rather, is that we are dealing

here with a special kind ofsovereignty—a discontinuous form of

sovereignty that should be considered liminal or marginal insofar

as it acts ‘‘in the final instance,’’ a sovereignty that locates its only

point ofreference in the definitive absoluteness ofthe power that

it can exercise. Empire thus appears in the form of a very high tech

machine: it is virtual, built to control the marginal event, and

organized to dominate and when necessary intervene in the break-

downs ofthe system (in line with the most advanced technologies

ofrobotic production). The virtuality and discontinuity ofimperial

sovereignty, however, do not minimize the effectiveness of its force;

40

T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T

on the contrary, those very characteristics serve to reinforce its