In recent years, conservative governments and their civil society allies have undermined internat... more In recent years, conservative governments and their civil society allies have undermined international women’s rights treaties and SOGI rights initiatives and challenged domestic rights protections. The articles in this special issue grapple with these trends by analysing the ideologies, discourses, and strategies of contemporary anti-feminism in global and comparative contexts. Several prominent patterns emerge: the core significance of social hierarchy and biological essentialism to anti-feminist conservative thought; the polarizing demonization of feminists by religious conservatives and populist nationalists; the appropriation of rights discourses and advocacy tactics by anti-feminist campaigns; and the strategic importance of law and legal language as a terrain of rights contestation. Taken together, this research suggests that anti-feminism is not incidental to reactionary anti-democratic politics, but instead a constitutive element of political movements that seek to naturali...
After 9/11, the Bush administration and, to a lesser degree, the Obama administration authorized ... more After 9/11, the Bush administration and, to a lesser degree, the Obama administration authorized controversial interrogation, detention, trial, lethal targeting, and surveillance practices. At the same time, American officials frequently invoked legal norms to justify these policies. This chapter introduces the book’s central questions: how can we make sense of these attempts to legalize human rights abuses and how does law influence state violence? As initially outlined in this chapter, the book argues that national security legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal rules. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization pushed American authorities to construct plausible legality, or legal cover for contentious counterterrorism policies. This culture contrasts with cultures of exception and cultures of secrecy, which have shaped American national security practice in the past, as well as a culture of human rights favored by many inte...
Designing effective public health campaigns to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy requires an unde... more Designing effective public health campaigns to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy requires an understanding of i) who the vaccine hesitant population is, and ii) the determinants of said population's hesitancy. While researchers have identified a number of variables associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy that could inform such campaigns, little is known about the cumulative or relative predictive power of these factors. In this article, we employ a machine learning model to analyze online survey data collected from 3353 respondents. The model incorporates an array of variables that have been shown to impact vaccine hesitancy, allowing us to i) test how well we can predict vaccine hesitancy, and ii) compare the relative predictive impact of each covariate. The model allows us to correctly classify individuals that are vaccine acceptant with 97% accuracy, and those that are vaccine hesitant with 72% accuracy. Trust in and knowledge about vaccines is, by far, the strongest predictor of vaccination choice. While our results demonstrate that public health campaigns designed to increase vaccination rates must find a way to increase public trust in COVID-19 vaccines, our results cannot speak to the malleability of such beliefs, nor how to enhance trust.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in Spring 2020, the Trump administration invoked war aga... more As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in Spring 2020, the Trump administration invoked war against the coronavirus to severely restrict admission of migrants and asylum seekers into the United States. At the same time, it declined to enact national measures to control viral community spread and sharply criticised public health policies. We analyse this notable inconsistency as a case of opportunistic oppression whereby policymakers take advantage of a crisis to pursue pre-existing, and often unrelated, policy preferences. We identify how the securitisation of health and the crisis-enabled politics of enmity allowed the Trump administration to cynically erode migrant human rights protections while simultaneously failing to contain the pandemic. Opportunistic oppression represents an attractive strategy for states facing real and imagined emergencies to pursue political agendas that are not necessarily part of a coherent and effective response to the crisis at hand.
We use survey data collected from 12,037 US respondents to examine the extent to which the Americ... more We use survey data collected from 12,037 US respondents to examine the extent to which the American public believes that political motives drive the manner in which scientific research is conducted and assess the impact that such beliefs have on COVID-19 risk assessments. We find that this is a commonly held belief and that it is negatively associated with risk assessments. Public distrust in scientists could complicate efforts to combat COVID-19, given that risk assessments are strongly associated with one's propensity to adopt preventative health measures.
The rise of patriarchal populist leaders over the past decade has fortified a long-standing campa... more The rise of patriarchal populist leaders over the past decade has fortified a long-standing campaign by conservative governments and advocacy groups to undermine women's international human rights. Their efforts have increasingly focused on revising language as a means to challenge and weaken the international norms and organizations essential to women's and girls' equality and health. Through our textual analysis of UN records, governmental and nongovernmental publications, media coverage of disputes over language, and background interviews with activists, we identify and delineate the significance of this 'norm spoiling' strategy and trace its expansion during the Trump administration. We find that women's rights challengers have pursued three distinct spoiling tactics based in language: controlling what women's rights advocates can say through policies such as the United States' 'global gag rule'; altering the meaning of women's rights by reframing them as an attack on other rights, such as religious freedom; and deleting foundational words, such as 'gender' and 'sexual and reproductive health and rights', from international agreements. The role of language in today's patriarchal populism goes beyond populist leaders' speeches, rallies and tweets. Their governments and allies systematically control, alter or delete words central to women's rights.
American officials attempted to construct the plausible legality of torture, indefinite detention... more American officials attempted to construct the plausible legality of torture, indefinite detention, targeted killing, and mass surveillance in the global war on terror. These efforts were largely successful, foreclosing prosecution and ensuring impunity for human rights violations. Moreover, with the exception of torture, many of these counterterrorism practices persist and enjoy widespread acceptance. Around the world, international human rights and humanitarian law have been weakened by American efforts to erode and reinterpret constraints on state violence. This has created space for more overt attacks on legal norms by the Trump administration, which has signaled its intent to shift American national security legal culture toward the politics of exception. At the same time, international law advocates are pushing back. The chapter concludes by reflecting on possible pathways for promoting a culture of human rights in the United States.
This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fo... more This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but foreign spying is subject to few constraints. During the Cold War, surveillance power was abused for political purposes. Operating in a culture of secrecy, American intelligence agencies engaged in extensive illegal domestic spying. The intelligence scandals of the 1970s revealed these abuses, prompting new laws, notably the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Fearing further recrimination, the national security establishment increasingly demanded legal cover. After 9/11, Congress expanded lawful surveillance powers with the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, the Bush administration directed the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless domestic wiretapping. To justify this program, officials sought to redefine unconstrained foreign surveillance to subsume previously protected communications. The ...
Can legal norms limit state violence? International relations and international law scholarship p... more Can legal norms limit state violence? International relations and international law scholarship provide a variety of answers to this problem. Realist, decisionist, and critical theorists conceptualize law as permit, as a weak constraint on and tool of powerful states. In contrast, liberals and constructivists emphasize law’s capacity to constrain states for rationalist and normative reasons. This chapter examines whether these contending perspectives adequately account for how authorities navigate legal rules across legal cultures. It argues that legal cultures of exception and secrecy tend to operate in accordance with the assumptions of law as permit, while largely aspirational cultures of human rights fulfill a vision of law as constraint. In the United States’ contemporary culture of legal rationalization, law serves as a permissive constraint. Permissive legal interpretation has enabled American officials to establish legal cover for human rights abuses, while legal norms simul...
After 9/11, American officials authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism practices includi... more After 9/11, American officials authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism practices including torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, trial by military commission, targeted killing, and mass surveillance. While these policies sparked global outrage, the Bush administration defended them as legally legitimate. Government lawyers produced memoranda deeming enhanced interrogation techniques, denial of habeas corpus, drone strikes, and warrantless wiretapping lawful. Although it rejected torture, the Obama administration made similar claims and declined to prosecute abuses. This book seeks to understand how and why Americans repeatedly legally justified seemingly illegal security policies and what this tells us about the capacity of law to constrain state violence. It argues that legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal norms. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization encouraged authorities to seek legal cove...
From bringing back waterboarding, to violating treaty obligations , to banning Muslims, Donald J.... more From bringing back waterboarding, to violating treaty obligations , to banning Muslims, Donald J. Trump has proposed numerous ex-tralegal policies. We examine the implications of this disdain for legality , arguing that Trump's frequent hostility and indifference to legal rules and institutions paradoxically impede his capacity to enact his promises and damage international law. To situate Trump's legal politics, we draw comparisons with the Bush and Obama administrations. As constructivists note, the vitality of legal norms is dependent not just on one state's actions , but crucially on others' reactions. While Trump has gone beyond his predecessors in rhetorically attacking international law, the backlash he generates limits the realization of his agenda in part due to his failure to convince others to violate the law or revise legal rules in novel ways. When the administration does reluctantly pursue legal justifications for controversial policies, it is better able to overcome legal constraints and political opposition. Resumen: Desde traer de vuelta el submarino hasta violar las obligaciones de tratados y prohibir el ingreso a los musulmanes, Donald J. Trump ha propuesto numerosas políticas por fuera de la ley. Examinamos las impli-caciones de este desdén por la legalidad al argumentar que la frecuente hostilidad e indiferencia de Trump hacia las normas e instituciones legales impiden paradójicamente su capacidad de cumplir con sus promesas y perjudican el derecho internacional. Para contextualizar la política legal de Trump, hacemos comparaciones con los gobiernos de Bush y Obama. Como señalan los constructivistas, la vitalidad de las normas legales de-pende no solo de las acciones de un estado, sino fundamentalmente de las reacciones de los demás. Si bien Trump ha ido más allá de sus predece-sores al atacar retóricamente el derecho internacional, la reacción adversa que genera limita el cumplimiento de sus objetivos, en parte debido al fracaso de Trump para convencer a otros de violar la ley o revisar las nor-mas legales de maneras novedosas. Cuando el gobierno busca a regañadi-entes justificaciones legales para políticas controversiales, está mejor posi-cionado para superar las restricciones legales y la oposición política. Résumé: Du rétablissement du «waterboarding» à la violation d'obligations de traité et à l'exclusion des Musulmans, Donal J. Trump a proposé de nombreuses politiques qui sortent du cadre légal. Nous étudions les conséquences de son mépris pour la légalité, en soutenant que son hostilité et son indifférence fréquentes envers les règles et les institutions de droit l'empêchent paradoxalement de tenir ses promesses et portent préjudice au droit international. Pour situer la politique légale de Trump, nous l'avons comparée à celles des administrations de Bush et d'Obama. Comme les constructivistes le soulignent, le dynamisme des normes légales ne dépend pas uniquement des actions d'un seul état, mais essentiellement de la réaction des autres états. Alors que
Women’s social, economic and political equality and reproductive freedom have been rhetorically e... more Women’s social, economic and political equality and reproductive freedom have been rhetorically embraced by a majority of countries that have ratified international human rights treaties. At the same time, conservative states and non-state actors have waged a concerted campaign to undermine these principles at the United Nations. In this article, I trace the dynamics of what I call the strategy of norm spoiling. Norm spoiling is the process through which actors directly challenge existing norms with the aim of weakening their influence. Although utilizing traditional tools of norm entrepreneurship and human rights advocacy, it has distinctive characteristics. The reactionary nature of norm spoiling means norm challengers do not need to consolidate and institutionalize support for alternative norms in order to advance their agenda. Instead, they can frustrate and destabilize target norms through protracted efforts to block their development and diffusion. Moreover, because spoilers are united by shared antipathies rather than by a substantive vision of politics, spoiling coalitions are composed of unnatural and even counter-intuitive allies. Throughout the article, I document tactics used by women’s rights spoilers as well as their impact on international treaties, declarations and related policies. Women’s rights advocates would be wise to recognize these trends in order to defend progressive gains.
In recent years, conservative governments and their civil society allies have undermined internat... more In recent years, conservative governments and their civil society allies have undermined international women’s rights treaties and SOGI rights initiatives and challenged domestic rights protections. The articles in this special issue grapple with these trends by analysing the ideologies, discourses, and strategies of contemporary anti-feminism in global and comparative contexts. Several prominent patterns emerge: the core significance of social hierarchy and biological essentialism to anti-feminist conservative thought; the polarizing demonization of feminists by religious conservatives and populist nationalists; the appropriation of rights discourses and advocacy tactics by anti-feminist campaigns; and the strategic importance of law and legal language as a terrain of rights contestation. Taken together, this research suggests that anti-feminism is not incidental to reactionary anti-democratic politics, but instead a constitutive element of political movements that seek to naturali...
After 9/11, the Bush administration and, to a lesser degree, the Obama administration authorized ... more After 9/11, the Bush administration and, to a lesser degree, the Obama administration authorized controversial interrogation, detention, trial, lethal targeting, and surveillance practices. At the same time, American officials frequently invoked legal norms to justify these policies. This chapter introduces the book’s central questions: how can we make sense of these attempts to legalize human rights abuses and how does law influence state violence? As initially outlined in this chapter, the book argues that national security legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal rules. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization pushed American authorities to construct plausible legality, or legal cover for contentious counterterrorism policies. This culture contrasts with cultures of exception and cultures of secrecy, which have shaped American national security practice in the past, as well as a culture of human rights favored by many inte...
Designing effective public health campaigns to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy requires an unde... more Designing effective public health campaigns to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy requires an understanding of i) who the vaccine hesitant population is, and ii) the determinants of said population's hesitancy. While researchers have identified a number of variables associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy that could inform such campaigns, little is known about the cumulative or relative predictive power of these factors. In this article, we employ a machine learning model to analyze online survey data collected from 3353 respondents. The model incorporates an array of variables that have been shown to impact vaccine hesitancy, allowing us to i) test how well we can predict vaccine hesitancy, and ii) compare the relative predictive impact of each covariate. The model allows us to correctly classify individuals that are vaccine acceptant with 97% accuracy, and those that are vaccine hesitant with 72% accuracy. Trust in and knowledge about vaccines is, by far, the strongest predictor of vaccination choice. While our results demonstrate that public health campaigns designed to increase vaccination rates must find a way to increase public trust in COVID-19 vaccines, our results cannot speak to the malleability of such beliefs, nor how to enhance trust.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in Spring 2020, the Trump administration invoked war aga... more As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in Spring 2020, the Trump administration invoked war against the coronavirus to severely restrict admission of migrants and asylum seekers into the United States. At the same time, it declined to enact national measures to control viral community spread and sharply criticised public health policies. We analyse this notable inconsistency as a case of opportunistic oppression whereby policymakers take advantage of a crisis to pursue pre-existing, and often unrelated, policy preferences. We identify how the securitisation of health and the crisis-enabled politics of enmity allowed the Trump administration to cynically erode migrant human rights protections while simultaneously failing to contain the pandemic. Opportunistic oppression represents an attractive strategy for states facing real and imagined emergencies to pursue political agendas that are not necessarily part of a coherent and effective response to the crisis at hand.
We use survey data collected from 12,037 US respondents to examine the extent to which the Americ... more We use survey data collected from 12,037 US respondents to examine the extent to which the American public believes that political motives drive the manner in which scientific research is conducted and assess the impact that such beliefs have on COVID-19 risk assessments. We find that this is a commonly held belief and that it is negatively associated with risk assessments. Public distrust in scientists could complicate efforts to combat COVID-19, given that risk assessments are strongly associated with one's propensity to adopt preventative health measures.
The rise of patriarchal populist leaders over the past decade has fortified a long-standing campa... more The rise of patriarchal populist leaders over the past decade has fortified a long-standing campaign by conservative governments and advocacy groups to undermine women's international human rights. Their efforts have increasingly focused on revising language as a means to challenge and weaken the international norms and organizations essential to women's and girls' equality and health. Through our textual analysis of UN records, governmental and nongovernmental publications, media coverage of disputes over language, and background interviews with activists, we identify and delineate the significance of this 'norm spoiling' strategy and trace its expansion during the Trump administration. We find that women's rights challengers have pursued three distinct spoiling tactics based in language: controlling what women's rights advocates can say through policies such as the United States' 'global gag rule'; altering the meaning of women's rights by reframing them as an attack on other rights, such as religious freedom; and deleting foundational words, such as 'gender' and 'sexual and reproductive health and rights', from international agreements. The role of language in today's patriarchal populism goes beyond populist leaders' speeches, rallies and tweets. Their governments and allies systematically control, alter or delete words central to women's rights.
American officials attempted to construct the plausible legality of torture, indefinite detention... more American officials attempted to construct the plausible legality of torture, indefinite detention, targeted killing, and mass surveillance in the global war on terror. These efforts were largely successful, foreclosing prosecution and ensuring impunity for human rights violations. Moreover, with the exception of torture, many of these counterterrorism practices persist and enjoy widespread acceptance. Around the world, international human rights and humanitarian law have been weakened by American efforts to erode and reinterpret constraints on state violence. This has created space for more overt attacks on legal norms by the Trump administration, which has signaled its intent to shift American national security legal culture toward the politics of exception. At the same time, international law advocates are pushing back. The chapter concludes by reflecting on possible pathways for promoting a culture of human rights in the United States.
This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fo... more This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but foreign spying is subject to few constraints. During the Cold War, surveillance power was abused for political purposes. Operating in a culture of secrecy, American intelligence agencies engaged in extensive illegal domestic spying. The intelligence scandals of the 1970s revealed these abuses, prompting new laws, notably the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Fearing further recrimination, the national security establishment increasingly demanded legal cover. After 9/11, Congress expanded lawful surveillance powers with the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, the Bush administration directed the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless domestic wiretapping. To justify this program, officials sought to redefine unconstrained foreign surveillance to subsume previously protected communications. The ...
Can legal norms limit state violence? International relations and international law scholarship p... more Can legal norms limit state violence? International relations and international law scholarship provide a variety of answers to this problem. Realist, decisionist, and critical theorists conceptualize law as permit, as a weak constraint on and tool of powerful states. In contrast, liberals and constructivists emphasize law’s capacity to constrain states for rationalist and normative reasons. This chapter examines whether these contending perspectives adequately account for how authorities navigate legal rules across legal cultures. It argues that legal cultures of exception and secrecy tend to operate in accordance with the assumptions of law as permit, while largely aspirational cultures of human rights fulfill a vision of law as constraint. In the United States’ contemporary culture of legal rationalization, law serves as a permissive constraint. Permissive legal interpretation has enabled American officials to establish legal cover for human rights abuses, while legal norms simul...
After 9/11, American officials authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism practices includi... more After 9/11, American officials authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism practices including torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, trial by military commission, targeted killing, and mass surveillance. While these policies sparked global outrage, the Bush administration defended them as legally legitimate. Government lawyers produced memoranda deeming enhanced interrogation techniques, denial of habeas corpus, drone strikes, and warrantless wiretapping lawful. Although it rejected torture, the Obama administration made similar claims and declined to prosecute abuses. This book seeks to understand how and why Americans repeatedly legally justified seemingly illegal security policies and what this tells us about the capacity of law to constrain state violence. It argues that legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal norms. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization encouraged authorities to seek legal cove...
From bringing back waterboarding, to violating treaty obligations , to banning Muslims, Donald J.... more From bringing back waterboarding, to violating treaty obligations , to banning Muslims, Donald J. Trump has proposed numerous ex-tralegal policies. We examine the implications of this disdain for legality , arguing that Trump's frequent hostility and indifference to legal rules and institutions paradoxically impede his capacity to enact his promises and damage international law. To situate Trump's legal politics, we draw comparisons with the Bush and Obama administrations. As constructivists note, the vitality of legal norms is dependent not just on one state's actions , but crucially on others' reactions. While Trump has gone beyond his predecessors in rhetorically attacking international law, the backlash he generates limits the realization of his agenda in part due to his failure to convince others to violate the law or revise legal rules in novel ways. When the administration does reluctantly pursue legal justifications for controversial policies, it is better able to overcome legal constraints and political opposition. Resumen: Desde traer de vuelta el submarino hasta violar las obligaciones de tratados y prohibir el ingreso a los musulmanes, Donald J. Trump ha propuesto numerosas políticas por fuera de la ley. Examinamos las impli-caciones de este desdén por la legalidad al argumentar que la frecuente hostilidad e indiferencia de Trump hacia las normas e instituciones legales impiden paradójicamente su capacidad de cumplir con sus promesas y perjudican el derecho internacional. Para contextualizar la política legal de Trump, hacemos comparaciones con los gobiernos de Bush y Obama. Como señalan los constructivistas, la vitalidad de las normas legales de-pende no solo de las acciones de un estado, sino fundamentalmente de las reacciones de los demás. Si bien Trump ha ido más allá de sus predece-sores al atacar retóricamente el derecho internacional, la reacción adversa que genera limita el cumplimiento de sus objetivos, en parte debido al fracaso de Trump para convencer a otros de violar la ley o revisar las nor-mas legales de maneras novedosas. Cuando el gobierno busca a regañadi-entes justificaciones legales para políticas controversiales, está mejor posi-cionado para superar las restricciones legales y la oposición política. Résumé: Du rétablissement du «waterboarding» à la violation d'obligations de traité et à l'exclusion des Musulmans, Donal J. Trump a proposé de nombreuses politiques qui sortent du cadre légal. Nous étudions les conséquences de son mépris pour la légalité, en soutenant que son hostilité et son indifférence fréquentes envers les règles et les institutions de droit l'empêchent paradoxalement de tenir ses promesses et portent préjudice au droit international. Pour situer la politique légale de Trump, nous l'avons comparée à celles des administrations de Bush et d'Obama. Comme les constructivistes le soulignent, le dynamisme des normes légales ne dépend pas uniquement des actions d'un seul état, mais essentiellement de la réaction des autres états. Alors que
Women’s social, economic and political equality and reproductive freedom have been rhetorically e... more Women’s social, economic and political equality and reproductive freedom have been rhetorically embraced by a majority of countries that have ratified international human rights treaties. At the same time, conservative states and non-state actors have waged a concerted campaign to undermine these principles at the United Nations. In this article, I trace the dynamics of what I call the strategy of norm spoiling. Norm spoiling is the process through which actors directly challenge existing norms with the aim of weakening their influence. Although utilizing traditional tools of norm entrepreneurship and human rights advocacy, it has distinctive characteristics. The reactionary nature of norm spoiling means norm challengers do not need to consolidate and institutionalize support for alternative norms in order to advance their agenda. Instead, they can frustrate and destabilize target norms through protracted efforts to block their development and diffusion. Moreover, because spoilers are united by shared antipathies rather than by a substantive vision of politics, spoiling coalitions are composed of unnatural and even counter-intuitive allies. Throughout the article, I document tactics used by women’s rights spoilers as well as their impact on international treaties, declarations and related policies. Women’s rights advocates would be wise to recognize these trends in order to defend progressive gains.
In many ways, the United States' post-9/11 engagement with legal rules is puzzling. Officials in ... more In many ways, the United States' post-9/11 engagement with legal rules is puzzling. Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism policies that sparked global outrage, yet they have repeatedly insisted that their actions were lawful and legitimate.
In Plausible Legality, Rebecca Sanders examines how the US government interpreted, reinterpreted, and manipulated legal norms and what these justificatory practices reveal about the capacity of law to constrain state violence. Through case studies on the use of torture, detention, targeted killing, and surveillance, Sanders provides a detailed analysis of how policymakers use law to achieve their political objectives and situates these patterns within a broader theoretical understanding of how law operates in contemporary politics. She argues that legal culture–defined as collectively shared understandings of legal legitimacy and appropriate forms of legal practice in particular contexts–plays a significant role in shaping state practice. In the global war on terror, a national security culture of legal rationalization encouraged authorities to construct the plausible legality of human rights violations in order to provide legal cover and ensure impunity for wrongdoing.
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In Plausible Legality, Rebecca Sanders examines how the US government interpreted, reinterpreted, and manipulated legal norms and what these justificatory practices reveal about the capacity of law to constrain state violence. Through case studies on the use of torture, detention, targeted killing, and surveillance, Sanders provides a detailed analysis of how policymakers use law to achieve their political objectives and situates these patterns within a broader theoretical understanding of how law operates in contemporary politics. She argues that legal culture–defined as collectively shared understandings of legal legitimacy and appropriate forms of legal practice in particular contexts–plays a significant role in shaping state practice. In the global war on terror, a national security culture of legal rationalization encouraged authorities to construct the plausible legality of human rights violations in order to provide legal cover and ensure impunity for wrongdoing.