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Reregulating for Freshwater Enclosure: A State of Exception in Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand
Author(s) -
Thomas Amanda C.,
Bond Sophie
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12214
Subject(s) - aotearoa , authoritarianism , democracy , state (computer science) , abandonment (legal) , government (linguistics) , hegemony , argument (complex analysis) , political economy , sociology , political science , law and economics , law , politics , philosophy , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , computer science , algorithm
In this paper, we argue that democracy is increasingly indistinguishable from authoritarianism, in a process that is entangled with neoliberalisms. To build this argument, we examine a case study of central government intervention in regional environmental decision making in Aotearoa New Zealand through the lens of Agamben's “state of exception”. The intervention—unprecedented and unconstitutional—squeezed democratic spaces for decision making about freshwater and sought to smooth the way for capital accumulation. The audacity of government actions indicate, we argue, an abandonment of efforts to disguise neoliberal encroachments on democracy, known as the double truth tactic. Yet we also argue that in identifying this as a state of exception, we can examine it as part of a process and therefore demonstrate the possibilities for counter‐hegemonic actions to emerge.