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Didier Bigo

Bio: Didier Bigo is an academic researcher from King's College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Terrorism & European union. The author has an hindex of 34, co-authored 281 publications receiving 6926 citations. Previous affiliations of Didier Bigo include Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques & University of Cambridge.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem as mentioned in this paper, which is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the negative effects of globalization; it is the result of the creation of a continuum of threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs in the process of making a risky and dangerous society.
Abstract: Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem. The prism of security analysis is especially important for politicians, for national and local police organizations, the military police, customs officers, border patrols, secret services, armies, judges, some social services (health care, hospitals, schools), private corporations (bank analysts, providers of technology surveillance, private policing), many journalists (especially from television and the more sensationalist newspapers), and a significant fraction of general public opinion, especially but not only among those attracted to "law and order." The popularity of this security prism is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the negative effects of globalization; it is the result of the creation of a continuum of threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs in the process of making a risky and dangerous society. The professionals in charge of the management of risk and fear especially transfer the legitimacy they gain from struggles against terrorists, criminals, spies, and counterfeiters toward other targets, most notably transnational political activists, people crossing borders, or people born in the country but with foreign parents. This expansion of what security is taken to include effectively results in a convergence between the meaning of international and internal security. The convergence is particularly important in relation to the issue of migration, and specifically in relation to questions about who gets to be defined as an immigrant. The security professionals themselves, along with some academics, tend to claim that they are only responding to new threats requiring exceptional measures beyond the normal demands of everyday politics. In practice, however, the transformation of security and the consequent focus on immigrants is directly related to their own immediate interests (competition for budgets and missions) and to the transformation of technologies they use (computerized databanks, profiling and morphing, electronic phone tapping). The Europeanization and the Westernization of the logics of control and surveillance of people beyond national polices is driven by the creation of a transnational field of professionals in the management of unease. This field is larger than that of police organizations in that it includes, on one hand private corporations and organizations dealing with the control of access to the welfare state, and, on the other hand, intelligence services and some military people seeking a new role after the end of the Cold War. These professionals in the management of unease, however, are only a node connecting many competing networks responding to many groups of people who are identified as risk or just as a source of unease. (1) This process of securitization is now well known, but despite the many critical discourses that have drawn attention to the securitization of migration over the past ten years, the articulation of migration as a security problem continues. Why? What are the reasons of the persistent framing of migration in relation to terrorism, crime, unemployment and religious zealotry, on the one hand, and to integration, interest of the migrant for the national economy development, on the other, rather than in relation to new opportunities for European societies, for freedom of travel over the world, for cosmopolitanism, or for some new understanding of citizenship? (2) This is the question I want to address in this essay. Some "critical" discourses generated by NGOs and academics assume that if people, politicians, governments, bureaucracies, and journalists were more aware, they would change their minds about migration and begin to resist securitizing it. The primary problem, therefore, is ideological or discursive in that the securitization of migrants derives from the language itself and from the different capacities of various actors to engage in speech acts. …

1,465 citations

Book ChapterDOI
13 May 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, a distinction between war, defence, international order and strategy, and another universe of crime, internal security, public order and police investigations is made, and a discussion of the relations between defence and internal security should be aligned in the new context of global (in)security.
Abstract: The discourses that the United States and its closest allies2 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 universe of war, defence, international order and strategy, and another universe of crime, internal security, public order and police investigations. Exacerbating this tendency yet further is the fact that, since 11 September 2001, there has been ongoing frenzied speculation throughout the Western political world and among its security ‘experts’ on how the relations between defence and internal security should be aligned in the new context of global (in)security.

345 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the evolution of critical views of approaches to security studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, investigate their intellectual ramifications, and examine how they coalesce around different issues (such as a state of exception).
Abstract: In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of security studies in Europe. Yet, despite an impressive body of literature, there remains fundamental disagreement as to what counts as critical in this context. Scholars are still arguing in terms of ‘schools’, while there has been an increasing and sustained cross-fertilization among critical approaches. Finally, the boundaries between critical and traditional approaches to security remain blurred. The aim of this article is therefore to assess the evolution of critical views of approaches to security studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, investigate their intellectual ramifications, and examine how they coalesce around different issues (such as a state of exception). The article then assesses the political implications of critical approaches. This is done mainly by analysing processes by which critical approaches to security percolate through a growing number of subjects (such as development, peace research, risk management). Finally, ethical and research implications are explored.

325 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that practices of control are routinely embedded in a practical sense that informs what controlling borders does and means, which 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 profiling of (un)trusted travellers.
Abstract: 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 ...

271 citations

Book
28 Apr 2005
TL;DR: Bigo and Elspeth as discussed by the authors discuss policing in the name of freedom and the legal framework of European labour migration, where does the State actually start? The contemporary governance of work and migration, John Crowley Looking at migrants as enemies.
Abstract: Contents: Introduction: policing in the name of freedom, Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild The legal framework: who is entitled to move?, Elspeth Guild Frontier controls in the European Union: who is in control?, Didier Bigo Who is entitled to work and who is in charge? Understanding the legal framework of European labour migration, Elspeth Guild Where does the State actually start? The contemporary governance of work and migration, John Crowley Looking at migrants as enemies, Anastassia Tsoukala The control of the enemy within? Police intelligence in the French suburbs (banlieues) and its relevance for globalization, Laurent Bonelli Policing by dossier: identification and surveillance in an era of uncertainty and fear, Ayse Ceyhan Policing at a distance: Schengen visa policies, Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild Bibliography Index.

263 citations


Cited by
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Journal Article
TL;DR: Thaler and Sunstein this paper described a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications, as a general approach to how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society.
Abstract: NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

3,435 citations

Book
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a typology of nationalisms in industrial and agro-literature societies, and a discussion of the difficulties of true nationalism in industrial societies.
Abstract: Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

2,912 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the 1966 paperback edition of a publication which first appeared in 1963 has by now been widely reviewed as a worthy contribution to the sociological study of deviant behavior as discussed by the authors, and the authors developed a sequential model of deviance relying on the concept of career, a concept originally developed in studies of occupations.
Abstract: This 1966 paperback edition of a publication which first appeared in 1963 has by now been widely reviewed as a worthy contribution to the sociological study of deviant behavior. Its current appearance as a paperback is a testimonial both to the quality of the work and to the prominence of deviant behavior in this generation. In general the author places deviance in perspective, identifies types of deviant behavior, considers the role of rule makers and enforcers, and some of the problems in studying deviance. In addition, he develops a sequential model of deviance relying on the concept of career, a concept originally developed in studies of occupations. In his study of a particular kind of deviance, the use of marihuana, the author posits and tests systematically an hypothesis about the genesis of marihuana use for pleasure. The hypothesis traces the sequence of changes in individual attitude

2,650 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: GARLAND, 2001, p. 2, the authors argues that a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças, and problemas de controle social that deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das
Abstract: Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

2,183 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem as mentioned in this paper, which is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the negative effects of globalization; it is the result of the creation of a continuum of threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs in the process of making a risky and dangerous society.
Abstract: Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem. The prism of security analysis is especially important for politicians, for national and local police organizations, the military police, customs officers, border patrols, secret services, armies, judges, some social services (health care, hospitals, schools), private corporations (bank analysts, providers of technology surveillance, private policing), many journalists (especially from television and the more sensationalist newspapers), and a significant fraction of general public opinion, especially but not only among those attracted to "law and order." The popularity of this security prism is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the negative effects of globalization; it is the result of the creation of a continuum of threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs in the process of making a risky and dangerous society. The professionals in charge of the management of risk and fear especially transfer the legitimacy they gain from struggles against terrorists, criminals, spies, and counterfeiters toward other targets, most notably transnational political activists, people crossing borders, or people born in the country but with foreign parents. This expansion of what security is taken to include effectively results in a convergence between the meaning of international and internal security. The convergence is particularly important in relation to the issue of migration, and specifically in relation to questions about who gets to be defined as an immigrant. The security professionals themselves, along with some academics, tend to claim that they are only responding to new threats requiring exceptional measures beyond the normal demands of everyday politics. In practice, however, the transformation of security and the consequent focus on immigrants is directly related to their own immediate interests (competition for budgets and missions) and to the transformation of technologies they use (computerized databanks, profiling and morphing, electronic phone tapping). The Europeanization and the Westernization of the logics of control and surveillance of people beyond national polices is driven by the creation of a transnational field of professionals in the management of unease. This field is larger than that of police organizations in that it includes, on one hand private corporations and organizations dealing with the control of access to the welfare state, and, on the other hand, intelligence services and some military people seeking a new role after the end of the Cold War. These professionals in the management of unease, however, are only a node connecting many competing networks responding to many groups of people who are identified as risk or just as a source of unease. (1) This process of securitization is now well known, but despite the many critical discourses that have drawn attention to the securitization of migration over the past ten years, the articulation of migration as a security problem continues. Why? What are the reasons of the persistent framing of migration in relation to terrorism, crime, unemployment and religious zealotry, on the one hand, and to integration, interest of the migrant for the national economy development, on the other, rather than in relation to new opportunities for European societies, for freedom of travel over the world, for cosmopolitanism, or for some new understanding of citizenship? (2) This is the question I want to address in this essay. Some "critical" discourses generated by NGOs and academics assume that if people, politicians, governments, bureaucracies, and journalists were more aware, they would change their minds about migration and begin to resist securitizing it. The primary problem, therefore, is ideological or discursive in that the securitization of migrants derives from the language itself and from the different capacities of various actors to engage in speech acts. …

1,465 citations