Biopolitics, or, in Achille Mbembe’s baleful articulation, necropolitics, is one of the central keywords of modernity in general and of the present moment in particular. Expanding Foucault’s fragmentary consideration of the term, the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito offers an analysis of the paradigm of immunization in the constitution of modern political society. Against the approach of contemporaries such as Giorgio Agamben, Esposito provocatively attempts to theorize a positive valence of biopolitics, one that might give greater purchase on debates over issues such as the War on Terror.
