Citizenship as Government: Disciplining Populations Post-9/11

Abstract

Much has been written on the growing tension that has emerged between the conflicting modes of political organization of a deterritorialized global capitalist system and an international political system based on the territorial nation-state system (e.g., Held and McGrew 1999, 2002; Scholte 2000). This tension is based on the fact that global economic processes often demand borders that are relatively open, enabling a less restrictive movement of goods and services (and some people) across them. In contrast, the nation-state and traditional modern notions of state security have been founded upon relatively fixed territorial borders and populations. These two principles seem to be at odds. Although this tension has existed for some time (Hollifield 2004 refers to this as the “liberal paradox”), it has become particularly visible since the events of September 11, 2001, with governments seeking to thwart terrorist attacks by exercising greater control over their borders, but in ways that do not jeopardize the global capitalist economy. New ways of disciplining populations through citizenship policies, such as border controls and travel regulations, have become increasingly important as a way of responding to these competing systems of governance. It seems that the moment of 9/11 has provided the opportunity for many countries to introduce disciplinary forms of governing populations, many of which had already been conceptualized prior to 2001.