This paper examines Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection as a framework to understand the exclusion of Hamas from the international normative order. Kristeva's concept of abjection refers to the process through which an entity is constituted as threatening to the integrity and purity of the self and is consequently expelled from the boundaries of legitimate subjectivity. Drawing on this framework, the paper analyses how Hamas has been discursively constructed as an existential threat, thereby rendering it abject within the international normative order. This process of exclusion not only marginalises Hamas but also constrains broader forms of Palestinian agency. The analysis highlights two key consequences of abjection: the reproduction of exclusionary hierarchies within the international normative order and the denial of subjectivity to marginalised actors. By extending the concept of abjection to the study of international hierarchies and self/other dichotomy, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on exclusion, legitimacy, and the politics of recognition in International Relations.
The question of how states make operational decisions in cyber conflict is under-theorised. Much of existing scholarship has answered it within general frameworks of materialist and rationalist theory. Yet, states with similar cyber capabilities and operating in the same environment often display markedly different operational styles. This article argues that accounting for operational variation among states requires greater attention to how risk and threat perception shape operational preferences under uncertainty, particularly when multiple feasible options exist. To this end, the article develops a conceptual framework that distinguishes between a risk society, which tends towards operational restraint and caution rooted in a cultural preoccupation with the reduction of uncertain and diffused security risks, and a threat society, which exhibits operational brazenness owing to a fixation on a perceived existential threat. The article illustrates the framework within two case studies, the United States and Russia.
