Didier Bigo

Globalized-In-Security: the Field and the Ban-Opticon

T discourses that the United States and its closest allies 2 have put forth asserting the necessity to globalize security have taken on an unprecedented intensity and reach. They justify themselves by propagating the idea of a global “(in)security,” attributed to the development of threats of mass destruction, thought to derive from terrorist or other criminal organizations and the governments that support them. This globalization is supposed to make national borders effectively obsolete, and to oblige other actors in the international arena to collaborate. At the same time, it makes obsolete the conventional distinction between the constellation of war, defence, international order and strategy, and another constellation of crime, internal security, public order and police investigations. Exacerbating this tendency yet further is the fact that, since September 11,

The (in)securitization practices of the three universes of EU border control: Military/Navy - border guards/police - database analysts

What practices of (in)securitization involve the notions of border and border control in the European Union? How do these practices operate? How are they assembled? In the resulting assemblage, is the notion of borders – understood as state borders – still relevant for the control of individuals and populations moving across the frontiers of the EU? Drawing on empirical observations and with a specific focus on how border control is translated into different social universes, this article seeks to show that practices of control are routinely embedded in a practical sense that informs what controlling borders does and means. This practical sense is itself informed by different professional habitus and work routines involving deterrence and the use of force, interrogation and detention, surveillance of populations on the move and the profiling of (un)trusted travellers. Its strength varies in relation to its shared dimension by most of the operators, and is adjusted to the materiality of borders as well as to the local contexts in which it is deployed. It activates, or does not activate, the maximal use of various control technologies (satellites, pre-registration and interoperable exchange of data between the state and private bureaucracies, biometrics identifiers, body-scanners). For understanding practices of (in)securitization, actual work routines and the specific professional ‘dispositions’ are therefore more important than any discourses actors may use to justify their activities.

Internal and External Aspects of Security

Abstract This contribution analyses the merging of internal and external aspects of security. Whereas according to the ‘doxa’ emerging after 11 September 2001, such convergence is the logical and necessary answer to global terrorism, this article argues instead that the de-differentiation between internal and external security does not result from the transformation of political violence, but mainly from institutional games and practices of securitisation that define the importance of security as superior to sovereignty and freedom. A web of security institutions has developed beyond national borders, and policing at a distance has disentangled security from state sovereignty. The question of who is in charge of security is now tackled at the transnational level, generating competition among professionals of politics and (in)security over the existence of threats and legitimate answers to them. Moreover, the role of technology, especially concerning information exchange, has reinforced the importance of security professionals. The impact of Europeanisation has been central as it has formalised transnational ties between security professionals, and the emergence of European institutions in charge of fundamental rights and data protection may provide a space to discuss collectively who is entitled to define what constitutes a threat.

Political Sociology and the Problem of the International

This paper revisits the multiple theoretical antagonisms mobilised by a claimed opposition between the international and the global/local so as to elaborate the stakes of working through traditions of political sociology that have been marginalised in most forms of international relations theory. The paper especially addresses the contribution of recent work on the social production of limits and borders and the re-articulation of practices of exception. Resisting conventions of international theory predicated on Schmittian accounts of limits in territory and law, the paper assesses recent claims about sovereignty, security and liberty informed by a reflection about the way concepts of field and dispositif may be used in an analysis of the boundaries of contemporary politics. To this end, the paper draws attention to the topology of a moebius ribbon as an especially suggestive comparison with topologies affirming clear distinctions between internal and external sites of sociopolitical life.

Immigration controls and free movement in Europe

Effective control of cross-border activities is nearly impossible in market-economy regimes which, in order to remain viable, have to keep their borders open to goods, capital and services. This article exposes the tensions between a legal system predicated on openness and a groundswell of security-driven rhetoric justifying coercive and ostracizing practices against foreigners.

Northern Ireland as metaphor: Exception, suspicion and radicalization in the 'war on terror'

This article questions the fashionable view that Northern Ireland is a counterinsurgency lesson to be learned for the global ‘war on terror’. It suggests that Britain’s involvement in the Northern Ireland conflict – one of the longest conflicts within Europe in which a government has been at war with a clandestine organization – can be regarded as a meaningful metaphoric utterance in efforts to analyse the practical failures and threat discourses of the global ‘war on terror’. Northern Ireland is more than a specific case study: it acts as an appealing metaphor in attempts to understand the logics and pitfalls of the ‘war against terrorism’, where the increasing primacy granted to terror control – present and future – means that Western governments are increasingly more willing to infringe otherwise inviolable rights in the pursuit of a supposed greater good – security. The article explores the political economy of unease, suspicion, exception and radicalization in the ‘war against terrorism’. It concludes that Northern Ireland is not a model that can be exported around the globe but an invitation to analyse contingency, daily operations of security, and their effects on social practices and routines. Northern Ireland also represents a remarkable inducement to assess how exception, suspicion and radicalization are correlated, as well as to recognize that efforts to contain the unpredictability of the future are self-defeating.

National Programmes for Mass Surveillance of Personal Data in EU Member States and their Compatibility with EU Law

In the wake of the disclosures surrounding PRISM and other US surveillance programmes, this study makes an assessment of the large-scale surveillance practices by a selection of EU member states: the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Given the large-scale nature of surveillance practices at stake, which represent a reconfiguration of traditional intelligence gathering, the study contends that an analysis of European surveillance programmes cannot be reduced to a question of balance between data protection versus national security, but has to be framed in terms of collective freedoms and democracy. It finds that four of the five EU member states selected for in-depth examination are engaging in some form of large-scale interception and surveillance of communication data, and identifies parallels and discrepancies between these programmes and the NSA-run operations. The study argues that these surveillance programmes do not stand outside the realm of EU intervention but can be engaged from an EU law perspective via (i) an understanding of national security in a democratic rule of law framework where fundamental human rights standards and judicial oversight constitute key standards; (ii) the risks presented to the internal security of the Union as a whole as well as the privacy of EU citizens as data owners, and (iii) the potential spillover into the activities and responsibilities of EU agencies. The study then presents a set of policy recommendations to the European Parliament.

Review of Security Measures in the 7th Research Framework Programme FP7 2007-2013

Upon request by the LIBE Committee, this study analyses how the public-private dialogue has been framed and shaped and examines the priorities set up in calls and projects that have received funding from the European Commission under the security theme of the 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7 20072013). In particular, this study addresses two main questions: to what extent is security research placed at the service of citizens? To what extent does it contribute to the development of a single area of fundamental rights and freedoms? The study finds that security research has only partly addressed the concerns of EU citizens and that security research has been mainly put at the service of industry rather than society.

The Commission’s legislative proposals on Smart Borders: their feasibility and costs

This study examines the technical feasibility and financial soundness of the Commission legislative proposals to establish a EU Entry/Exit System (EES) and EU Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) for the external borders of the Union. It puts the impact assessment documents accompanying the proposals in comparative perspectives with likeminded initiatives in third countries (USVIST), at the national level in the EU (UK border checks and e-Borders), and with past European initiatives (SIS II, VIS). It finds that it is not reasonable to consider that the measures envisaged in the smart borders package are technically feasible and financially sounds, and formulates recommendations to the LIBE Committee and the European Parliament in this regard.

Ethnicity, State, and World-System: Comments on the Ways of Making History

Relating state, ethnicity, and globalization throughout history raises the question of the durability of concepts capable of transcending historical time in order to produce appropriate explanatory models. The article, which offers a critical commentary on the articles by Fred Riggs, Thomas Hall, Jonathan Friedman, and Majid Tehranian, shows the strength of long term (longue durée) historical models to explain what appears “new” or a “return” to nationalism. The author discusses the position taken by the four authors concerning ethnic conflicts and immigration and concludes with the observation that natural history is an illusion.