Necropolitics: When the State Decides Who Lives, Who Dies, and Who Simply Exists
In short: Beyond the traditional state power to protect life, necropolitics describes how political systems dictate death. It transforms vast populations into the living dead, stripping them of sovereignty and autonomy. From systemic racism to global economic cuts, this theory exposes the dark mechanisms that mark specific bodies for slow elimination.
First introduced by Achille Mbembe in 2003, necropolitics serves as a critical lens to understand how modern sovereignty extends beyond biopower—the Foucaultian concept of managing life—into the active administration of death. While biopower focuses on protecting and normalizing populations, necropower operates at the limits, where states decide which lives are expendable. Mbembe argues that this creates 'deathworlds,' environments where individuals are reduced to a precarious existence, suspended between life and death, often through mechanisms like slavery, apartheid, or the colonization of Palestine.
This theory is not limited to overt violence or the right to kill. Scholars like Lauren Berlant describe a process of 'slow death,' where specific groups are systematically worn out through the ordinary conditions of daily life. This manifests in various ways: from neo-liberal cuts to public health and education structures, as noted by Marina Gržinić, to the internal prison systems described by Frédéric Le Marcis, where malnourishment and overlooked violence become tools of state-sponsored subjugation. In these spaces, individuals lose sovereignty over their own bodies, becoming objects of a necroeconomy.
The framework has expanded to analyze how identity intersects with state violence. Jasbir Puar’s 'queer necropolitics' examines how certain marginalized groups may gain proximity to power by distancing themselves from others, while Judith Butler highlights how the lack of 'grievability' for certain lives—such as those of queer individuals or people of color—normalizes their erasure. Most recently, Khaled Al-Kassimi has applied these concepts to the international order, arguing that Western modernity uses epistemic and legal frameworks to render Arab subjects as 'living-dead' or 'bare-life,' a dynamic he explores in the context of the Gaza war and the post-World War II geopolitical landscape.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Necropolitics
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