Insuring Security Insurance is the world’s largest economic industry, providing a form of security that more than triples global defence expenditure. However, little is known about the form of security insurance provides. This book offers a genealogical inter- rogation of the relationship between security and risk through its materialization in insurance. This work seeks to argue that insurance practices ascribe value to life and in so doing produce a form of security central to the understanding of contemporary lib- eral governance and security. Lobo-Guerrero theorizes insurance as a biopolitical effect that results from the continuous interaction of an ‘entrepreneurial form of power’ and traditional forms of sovereign security. Through rich empirical cases and a unique theorization, the book breaks apart the traditional division between security studies, political economy and political theory. The author explores this theory in relation to specific issues such as the use of life insurance in the molecu- lar age, the use of insurance to securitize against environmental catastrophic risk, and specialist products such as kidnap and ransom insurance, as well as the use of insurance to counter maritime piracy in the twenty-first century. Providing an important and original contribution to the study of the biopolitics of security, this work will be of great interest to all scholars of security studies, international relations and international political economy. Luis Lobo-Guerrero is Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, UK. He has published widely on the biopolitics of security, insurance as a lib- eral security technology and the relationship between security, risk and liberal governance. Interventions Edited by Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University, and Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick “As Michel Foucault has famously stated, ‘knowledge is not made for under- standing; it is made for cutting’. In this spirit The Edkins–Vaughan-Williams Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge mainstream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute post disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world recycled in IR’s traditional geopolitical imaginary.” Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa, USA The series aims to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars working within broad critical post-structural and post-colonial traditions have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of impor- tant topics. Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies in international politics. Critical Theorists and International Relations Edited by Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams Ethics as Foreign Policy Britain, the EU and the Other Dan Bulley Universality, Ethics and International Relations A grammatical reading Véronique Pin-Fat The Time of the City Politics, philosophy, and genre Michael J. Shapiro Governing Sustainable Development Partnership, protest and power at the World Summit Carl Death Foucault and International Relations New critical engagements Edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey and Doug Stokes International Relations and Non-Western Thought Imperialism, colonialism and investigations of global modernity Edited by Robbie Shilliam Insuring Security Biopolitics, security and risk Luis Lobo-Guerrero Insuring Security Biopolitics, security and risk Luis Lobo-Guerrero First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2011 Luis Lobo-Guerrero All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lobo-Guerrero, Luis. Insuring security: biopolitics, security, and risk / Luis Lobo-Guerrero. p. cm. – (Interventions) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-415-58343-5 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-203-84589-9 (e-book) 1. Risk (Insurance) 2. Risk management. 3. Life insurance. 4. Disaster insurance. 5. Marine insurance. I. Title. HG3054.5.L63 2010 368--dc22 2010013219 ISBN 0-203-84589-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN: 978-0-415-58343-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-84589-9 (ebk) To Mick and Nadine Contents Preface and acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 1 Making uncertainty fungible 13 2 Securing by capitalizing life 34 3 The quest for insurability in the molecular age 53 4 Securitizing catastrophic environments, insuring uninsurable lives 75 5 Kidnap and ransom insurance 93 6 Insurance and the securitization of global maritime circulation 108 7 Valuation–subjectivity–security 123 Notes 135 Bibliography 158 Index 171