Politics of Death and the Limits of Democracy: A Review of Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics

Abstract

This review offers a critical analysis of Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics (2019), a text that redefines the relationship between power and death in modern political life. Building upon Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics, Mbembe conceptualizes necropolitics as the exercise of sovereignty through the creation of “death worlds”—spaces where populations are rendered disposable. The review highlights Mbembe’s central argument that liberal democracy is inseparable from the colonial and racial regimes that underpin modernity. Drawing on examples from slavery, apartheid, and the occupation of Palestine, Mbembe illustrates how necropower operates across historical and contemporary contexts. The review emphasizes the book’s interdisciplinary breadth and its relevance to ongoing debates in political theory, postcolonial studies, and global governance. Despite its theoretical density, Necropolitics stands as an essential text for understanding how the management of death continues to define modern political systems.

Keywords: necropolitics, sovereignty, colonialism, racism, democracy, biopolitics, Achille Mbembe, postcolonial theory