This book focuses on security practices, civil liberties and the politics of borders in liberal democracies. In the aftermath of 9/11, security practices and the denial of human rights and civil liberties are often portrayed as an exception to liberal rule, and seen as institutionally, legally and spatially distinct from the liberal state. Drawing upon detailed empirical studies from migration controls, such as the French waiting zone, Australian off-shore processing and US maritime interceptions, this study demonstrates that the limitation of liberties is not an anomaly of liberal rule, but embedded within the legal order of liberal democracies. The most ordinary, yet powerful way, of limiting liberties is the creation of legal identities, legal borders and legal spaces. It is the possibility of limiting liberties through liberal and democratic procedures that poses the key challenge to the protection of liberties. The book develops three inter-related arguments. First, it questions the discourse of exception that portrays liberal and illiberal rule as distinct ways of governing and scrutinizes liberal techniques for limiting liberties. Second, it highlights the space of government and argues for a change in perspective from territorial to legal borders, especially legal borders of policing and legal borders of rights. Third, it emphasizes the role of ordinary law for illiberal practices and argues that the legal order itself privileges policing powers and prevents access to liberties. This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, social and political theory, political geography and legal studies, and IR in general.

This book examines the challenges posed to contemporary international law by the shifting role of the border, which has recently re-emerged as a central issue in international relations. It posits that borders do not merely correspond to States’ boundaries: indeed, while remaining a fundamental tool for asserting States’ power, they are in fact a collection of constantly changing spatial limits. Consequently, the book approaches borders as context-specific limits and revisits notions traditionally linked to them (jurisdiction, sovereignty, responsibility, individual rights), while also adopting the innovative approach of viewing borders as phenomena of both closedness and openness. Accordingly, the first part of the book addresses what happens “within” borders, investigating the root causes of the emergence of spatial limits and re-assessing apparent extra-territorial assertions of State power. In turn, the second part not only explores typical borderless spaces, but also more generally considers the exercise of States’ and international organisations’ powers and prerogatives across or “beyond” borders.

What kind of a world is one in which border security is understood as necessary? How is this transforming the shores of politics? And why does this seem to preclude a horizon of political justice for those affected? Border Security responds to these questions through an interdisciplinary exploration of border security, politics and justice. Drawing empirically on the now notorious case of Australia, the book pursues a range of theoretical perspectives – including Foucault’s work on power, the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and the cybernetic ethics of Heinz Von Foerster – in order to formulate an account of the thoroughly constructed and political nature of border security. Through this detailed and critical engagement, the book’s analysis elicits a political alternative to border security from within its own logic: thus signaling at least the beginnings of a way out of the cost, cruelty and devaluation of life that characterises the enforced reality of the world of border security.

Borders are changing in response to terrorism and immigration. This book shows why this matters, especially for sovereignty, individual liberty, and citizenship.

Drawing on the concept of the ‘politics of compassion’, this Handbook interrogates the political, geopolitical, social and anthropological processes which produce and govern borders and give rise to contemporary border violence.

Protecting the maritime borders : leveraging law enforcement cooperation to enhance security along America's coasts : hearing before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security of the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, July 12, 2011.