Global Governmentality

2    Nomos and the politics of world order¹

Mitchell Dean

Whether for conservatives, liberals or radicals, the question of world order has once again become fashionable. In an empirical sense it is our apparent inability to answer such a question which presses us most. It is now some time since the end of the Cold War, the ‘balance of terror that provided the functional equivalent to a stable world order’ (Ulmen 1996b: 4). We stand today at the official conclusion of the most recent Iraq war and at yet another phase of the War on Terror initiated by George W. Bush after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Security has once again become a key political concept and has formed the principle rationale for the reorganization of United States ...