Bureaucratic Capitalism and the Immigration Detention Complex
Global Detention Project Working Paper #9
June 2015
By Matthew Flynn
DOWNLOAD HERE: http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/publications/working-papers/bureaucratic-capitalism.html
Abstract:
The work of post-structuralist political philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1998, 2005) has had a major influence on the study of immigration detention in Europe and elsewhere. In particular, his concepts homo sacer (“bare life”) and “zones of exemption” depict the growth of immigration detention practices as an expression of sovereign power through inclusive exclusion. In other words, states demonstrate their power to confer rights upon their citizens by denying those rights to others. This paper argues that post-structuralist approaches to the study of immigration detention present a number of theoretical and conceptual problems. Post-structuralist analyses focusing on discourses divorced from actors present teleological problems in terms of theory. Additionally, post-structural accounts of detention centres using concepts such as homo sacer and Banoptican tend to conflate human rights and citizenship rights, which does not hold up empirically because many asylum seekers and irregular migrants still have access to legal redress. In contrast to post-structural accounts, the notion of “bureaucratic capitalism” developed by sociologist Gideon Sjoberg (1999) provides an analytical framework that is both critical and non-deterministic in explaining the motives of many actors involved in detention regimes. Specifically, immigration detention can be explained by employing conceptual frameworks used to assess the corporate-state nexus; human agency; rationalization processes like specialization and division of labour; hierarchy, responsibility, and blameability; and secrecy systems. Sjoberg’s meso-level theory provides critical insights into detention regimes in the United States and Europe as well as the role of private- and public-sector interests seeking rents. Moreover, focusing on the organization of detention helps reveal the causes of human rights violations as well as their possible redress.
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Global Detention Project
Geneva, Switzerland
http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/
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