Immunity and Biosecurity: Reading the Pandemic as a Mutual Relation Between Protection and Obedience

Abstract

ABSTRACT Biopolitics occupies a central role in contemporary debates over new political and governance strategies around the world. Based on the Hobbesian assumption of a “mutual relation between protection and obedience” the sovereign power of modern states seems to be founded with the purpose of the preservation and protection of life. But what happens if we look at the present pandemic, whereby governments are struggling against an “invisible enemy” to pursue this end, facing at the same time the problem of keeping up with the growth that sustains the wealth of our economies? Through the discussion of four contemporary, and often antagonistic, takes on biopolitics – Foucault’s understanding of biopower; Agamben’s critique of the logic of sovereignty; Esposito’s concept of immunitas; and Mbembe’s necropolitics – the aim of my paper will be to shed light on the theoretical implications of the pandemic for the foundations of political authority and the definition of modern sovereignty.