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Abstract
The objective of this project is to investigate the mechanisms through which dissent, regarding the conduct of national security affairs, has been expressed and acted upon publicly in a time of national security crisis. It shows the mechanisms through which critical thinking and political opposition continued to operate in the shadow of the dominant discourses on security and threats which, after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, attempted to impose a given narrative about security which relied on political consent as a security imperative. Treating this question from an international relations standpoint infused with sociological methods of inquiry, this project casts a different light on the actors relevant to the understanding of security policies. It demonstrates that the temptation of exceptionalism and the security discourses on which it relies are in constant evolution and modification depending on the waves that agitate the social fields that govern the enunciation of dominant discourses. To make these points, this thesis examines different social movements of opposition to the Patriot Act as well as the detention policies implemented during the war on terror and embodied by the detention camp of Guantanamo Bay. The reflection on these movements is interlaced within a larger analysis of the evolution of protest as a right and a social practice throughout the modern history of the United States in order to make sense of the contemporary forms of public political action. Eventually, this dissertation establishes that different forms of desecuritization are conceivable: repoliticization, rejudiciarization and the reform of the security measures that infringe on civil liberties in the name of the protection against a terrorist threat. Through a focalization on the role played by social actors and the use of sociological methods inspired by Bourdieu but also Edelman and Rogin, this project contributes to the critical approaches of security. It offers an alternative outlook on the Agambenian vision of the state of exception by denouncing the impression of fatality present in the Italian philosopher’s vision and insists, instead, on the resilience of key social actors such as librarians, civil liberties defense groups, lawyers and military personnel who, through their socialization, their professional ethics and values, managed to successfully resist the discourses of the administration and through institutional channels force it to the confines of its logic.
Keywords: security; terrorism; United States; social movement; resistance; Guantanamo; critical approaches; state of exception
