Insuring Life : Value, Security and Risk - Luis Lobo-Guerrero

Insuring Life

Value, Security and Risk

By: Luis Lobo-Guerrero

Hardcover | 5 May 2016 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $305.00

$215.80

29%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $53.95 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 7 to 10 business days

Life insurance is generally accepted to be part of an apparatus of security aimed at securing the everyday life of populations in advanced liberal economies. What is ultimately protected by insurance instruments are the livelihoods and lifestyles of individuals who purchase securities (policies) to protect themselves against life events such as illness and death. Insurers employ the revenue from policies as investment capital which must provide a return to compensate for future claims, but also to generate value to their stockholders. Insurers have traditionally been protected by reinsurers who in turn have had some form of protection by sovereign authorities.

The last decades, however, have witnessed a dynamic transformation in the operation of traditional life insurance schemes. As a result of the development of novel underwriting and actuarial techniques, as well as developments in the regulatory environments and court rulings, insurers have pioneered into new forms of ascribing value to life. These entail epistemological changes as a result of advances in science and the logics of classification, but also financial manoeuvres in the capital markets. Rendering the uncertainties of livelihoods and lifestyles as risks for which a form of security could be bought, insurers are actively finding ways of extracting value from life as security for clients but also as investment capital.

This volume is intended as a provocation for thinking liberal life as the result of three mutually implicated problems: value - security - risk. Their strategic interaction is observed here as materialised in life insurance, which is understood as constituting a political economy of security. It provides new analysis and interpretation of the importance of and historical (juridical) contestations surrounding, life insurance as a practice of governing. It situates life insurance in the context of everyday practices of security under liberalism, and analyses the way in which radically uncertain futures are domesticated and made profitable.

The book follows Insuring War as the third of a trilogy that analyses how concepts and practices of power, risk and security materialise in the form of insurance as a central instrument of governance in the liberal world.

Industry Reviews

'Insuring Life is a state-of-the-art intervention in the debates on the nature of the governing of life as uncertainty. Combines a breathtakingly detailed analysis of life insurance with a fresh philosophy of the event' - Professor Louise Amoore, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK

'Insuring Life is far more than an ironic twist on 'life insurance'. The third volume of Lobo-Guerreros's brilliant trilogy on insurance as governance, by refusing to take life for granted, shows how insurance practices constitute vitality itself, creating, shaping and sustaining life.' - Professor J. Peter Burgess, Ecole Normale Superieure, France

Praise for previous volumes in the trilogy:

'Insuring War does much more than show how important practices of insurance were to the development of modern warfare and security. Historically rich and theoretically sophisticated, the book demonstrates the central importance of the Probabilistic Revolution and secular risk calculation to the very possibility of sovereignty and modern statehood. Highly recommended to students of International Relations and International Political Economy alike.' - Marieke de Goede, Professor of Politics, University of Amsterdam

'Lobo-Guerrero's Insuring War is, first and foremost an important contribution to political thinking. Eschewing the traditional framing of violent conflict that foregrounds executive decision-making, arms races, and geopolitical alliances, Insuring War makes evident that what is central to the politics of deadly engagements is "the concerted art of managing uncertainty.' - Michael Shapiro, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA

'Luis Lobo-Guerrero is what I consider to be one of the foremost scholars in International Relations and specifically Critical Security Studies. Inspired by Michel Foucault's analytics and methods and forming part of a triptych devoted to insurance and security, Lobo-Guerrero provides in this volume a fascinating and original investigation into insurance and its uses in time of war.' - Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Politics, King's College London


'Insuring Life is a state-of-the-art intervention in the debates on the nature of the governing of life as uncertainty. Combines a breathtakingly detailed analysis of life insurance with a fresh philosophy of the event' - Professor Louise Amoore, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK

Praise for previous volumes in the trilogy:

'Insuring War does much more than show how important practices of insurance were to the development of modern warfare and security. Historically rich and theoretically sophisticated, the book demonstrates the central importance of the Probabilistic Revolution and secular risk calculation to the very possibility of sovereignty and modern statehood. Highly recommended to students of International Relations and International Political Economy alike.' - Marieke de Goede, Professor of Politics, University of Amsterdam

'Lobo-Guerrero's Insuring War is, first and foremost an important contribution to political thinking. Eschewing the traditional framing of violent conflict that foregrounds executive decision-making, arms races, and geopolitical alliances, Insuring War makes evident that what is central to the politics of deadly engagements is "the concerted art of managing uncertainty.' - Michael Shapiro, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA

'Luis Lobo-Guerrero is what I consider to be one of the foremost scholars in International Relations and specifically Critical Security Studies. Inspired by Michel Foucault's analytics and methods and forming part of a triptych devoted to insurance and security, Lobo-Guerrero provides in this volume a fascinating and original investigation into insurance and its uses in time of war.' - Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Politics, King's College London

More in Politics & Government

Best Australian Political Cartoons 2024 - Russ Radcliffe
Citizen : My Life After the White House - President Bill Clinton

RRP $65.00

$44.25

32%
OFF
A Long March - Kim Carr

Hardcover

RRP $49.99

$40.50

19%
OFF
HAMAS : The Quest for Power - Beverley Milton-Edwards
Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler

Paperback

RRP $59.99

$41.25

31%
OFF
The Gulag Archipelago : 1918-56 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

RRP $37.99

$33.90

11%
OFF
Colonialism : A Moral Reckoning - Nigel Biggar

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Humankind : A Hopeful History - Rutger Bregman

RRP $24.99

$23.75

War - Bob Woodward

Hardcover

RRP $55.00

$39.90

27%
OFF
The Forever War - Nick Bryant

RRP $36.99

$33.25

10%
OFF
Doppelganger : A Trip Into the Mirror World - Naomi Klein
PATRIOT - Alexei Navalny

Hardcover

RRP $55.00

$39.90

27%
OFF
The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hardcover

$41.95

War - Bob Woodward

Hardcover

$48.75