Behind China's World Trade Organization agreement with the USA

The ‘war on terror’ is widely regarded as instigating a major regression within the development of the international system. Processes of globalisation are being challenged, it is argued, by a reassertion of the sovereign power of nation-states, most especially the USA. In more overt terms this regression is represented as a ‘return’ of a traditional form of imperialism. This ‘return of imperialism’ thesis challenges the claims of theories developed during the 1990s which concentrate on the roles of deterritorialisation and the development of biopolitics in accounting for the constitution of the contemporary international order. In contrast this paper seeks to detail the important respects in which biopolitical forces of deterritorialisation continue to play an integral role within the strategies of power that make the war on terror possible. Rather than understanding the war on terror as a form of ‘regression’ it is necessary to pay heed to the complex intertwinings that continue to bind sovereign and biopolitical forms of power in the 21st century. Such an understanding is urgent in that it provides for different grounds from which to reflect on the processes by which international order is currently being reconstituted and to help think about how to engage in reshaping them.