The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability

by Louise Amoore

Since September 11, 2001, the imagination of "low probability, high consequence" events has become a distinctive feature of contemporary politics. Uncertain futures—devastation by terrorist attack, cyber crime, flood, financial market collapse—must be discerned and responded to as possibilities, however improbable they may be. In The Politics of Possibility, Louise Amoore examines this development, tracing its genealogy through the diverse worlds of risk management consulting, computer science, commercial logistics, and data visualization. She focuses on the increasingly symbiotic relationship between commercial opportunities and state security threats, a relation that turns the trusted, iris-scanned traveler into "a person of national security interest," and the designer of risk algorithms for casino and insurance fraud into a homeland security resource. Juxtaposing new readings of Agamben, Foucault, Derrida, Massumi, and Connolly with interpretations of post–9/11 novels and artworks, Amoore analyzes the "politics of possibility" and its far-reaching implications for society, associative life, and political accountability.

Genres: Geography

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 23, 2013

Reviews

[goddess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess I didn't finish this book; it's one of those required by my political theory class, which I just have a hard time getting into.

The author brings up some interesting topics related to security, especially as relates to post 9/11. The biggest question I had whilst reading this was "How much data mining do we allow as citizens?" Obviously, we live in an ever expanding information age. There is a lot of data on us. The trick is, keeping it safe and reigning in governments who want to use it (too much of it) for their purposes.