Critically but sympathetically interrogating Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's analysis of the logic of sovereign power, this volume draws attention to the multiple zones of exclusion in and through which contemporary international politics constitutes itself.

Beginning from the margins and peripheries of world politics, this book emphasises the colonial processes through which contemporary "third world" spaces of exception have been shaped and particular bodies made susceptible to the conditions of "bare life." The authors contend that these bodies inhabit a variety of spaces or "zones of indistinction" that include political detainees, refugees, asylum-seekers, poor migrants, sweatshop workers, and unassimilated indigenous populations. These are the "expendable bodies" that the territorial and market-driven logic of current international relations simultaneously produces, polices and excludes. Focussing on the locally and socio-historically specific ways that sovereign power works, the individual chapters provide the volume with a wide geographical reach. Drawing on diverse approaches, this text constitutes an important intervention in critical international relations, providing grounded theory and sophisticated analyses of how contemporary international relations works through the production of ?exceptions?.

Bringing together a range of internationally-renowned scholars, International Relations and States of Exception will be of vital interest to students and scholars of International Relations, Critical Theory and Postcolonial Studies.

"Chowdhry and Nair, along with the authors of this volume, make a timely, vital, and deeply necessary intervention in international relations - one that informs theoretically, enriches our knowledge of the world through its narratives, and forces us to confront the differentiated wholeness of our humanity. Readers will want to emulate the skills and sensibilities they offer.." Naeem Inayatullah, Ithaca College This work uses postcolonial theory to examine the implications of race, class and gender relations for the structuring or world politics. It addresses further themes central to postcolonial theory, such as the impact of representation on power relations, the relationship between global capital and power and the space for resistance and agency in the context of global power asymmetries.

Contents:
1. Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair Introduction: Power in a Postcolonial World: Race, Gender and Class in International Relations 2. Siba N. Grovogui Postcolonial Criticism: International Reality and Modes of Inquiry
3. Randolph B. Persaud Situating Race in International Relations: the Dialectics of Civilizational Security in American Immigration 4. J. Marshall Beier Beyond Hegemonic State(ment)s of Nature: Indigenous Knowledge and Non-State Possibilities in International Relations 5. L. H. M. Ling Cultural Chauvinism and the Liberal International Order: 'West versus Rest' in Asia's Financial Crises 6. Anna M. Agathangelou 'Sexing' Globalization in International Relations: Migrant Sex and Domestic Workers in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey 7. Sankaran Krishna In One Inning: National Identity in Postcolonial Times 8. Shampa Biswas The New Cold War: Secularism, Orientalism, and Postcoloniality 9. Dibyesh Anand A Story to be Told: IR, Postcolonialism, and the Discourse of Tibetan (Trans)national Identity 10. Geeta Chowdhry Postcolonial Interrogations of Child Labor: Human Rights, Carpet Trade, and Rugmark in India 11. Sheila Nair Human Rights and Postcoloniality: Representing Burma

Critically but sympathetically interrogating Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben s analysis of the logic of sovereign power, this volume draws attention to the multiple zones of exclusion in and through which contemporary international politics constitutes itself.

Beginning from the margins and peripheries of world politics, this book emphasises the colonial processes through which contemporary "third world" spaces of exception have been shaped and particular bodies made susceptible to the conditions of "bare life." The authors contend that these bodies inhabit a variety of spaces or "zones of indistinction" that include political detainees, refugees, asylum-seekers, poor migrants, sweatshop workers, and unassimilated indigenous populations. These are the "expendable bodies" that the territorial and market-driven logic of current international relations simultaneously produces, polices and excludes. Focussing on the locally and socio-historically specific ways that sovereign power works, the individual chapters provide the volume with a wide geographical reach. Drawing on diverse approaches, this text constitutes an important intervention in critical international relations, providing grounded theory and sophisticated analyses of how contemporary international relations works through the production of exceptions .

Bringing together a range of internationally-renowned scholars, International Relations and States of Exception will be of vital interest to students and scholars of International Relations, Critical Theory and Postcolonial Studies.