Reading technocratic exceptionalism through economic theology: Giorgio Agamben, Jacqueline Best, and the completion of the ‘double paradigm’ of sovereignty

Abstract

While Giorgio Agamben’s political theory of the exception received a great deal of attention in the early 2000s, he is once again riding a wave in International Relations theory as the growing community of “theologies of the International” investigates the many contributions of theological inquiry for world politics. At the same time as his works provide a common point of conversation between critical IR and political theology, the latter field is undergoing a profound shift to answer to Agamben’s call for a “double paradigm” of political and economic theology. This article investigates Jacqueline (Int Polit Sociol 12:328–345, 2018) theory of technocratic exceptionalism as a moment where these waters meet. At the very moment where IR theorists seek to draw lessons from political theology, Best’s concept of technocratic exceptionalism offers an opportunity for the completion of the double paradigm of sovereignty.