ABSTRACT
The political responses to the bombings in London on the 7 July 2005, the subsequent ‘failed’ bombings on 21 July, and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by anti-terrorist officers on 22 July, show us that the idea of a community in unity continues to be the overwhelmingly dominant model we have available for how we might organize political communities. This is the idea that a community must be formed around the foundational principle of unity, representing a shared essence that goes beyond people’s membership in a society or state.1 It is the image of community that underpins nationalist discourses, the kind that were circulating at full speed in the aftermath of the London bombings. This chapter will explore the idea of a community in unity through the case of political responses to the London bombings. In doing so, it will seek to reveal the tremendous capacity of this idea in steering out ability to conceive of possible alternatives. It will also offer a contribution to studies in international political theory that are specifically interested in exploring what might be involved in the task of forming different ideas of community, and what might be done to avoid reproducing the familiar impasses.
