Inhägnade stater, avtagande suveränitet

by Wendy Brown

Vi lever i en tid som sägs vara präglad av fria flöden, allt öppnare gränser och en allt tätare sammanbunden värld. Hur kommer det sig då att vi samtidigt ser en explosionsartad utbredning av murar och barriärer längs samma nationsgränser som påstås vara på väg att försvinna?

I Inhägnade stater, avtagande suveränitet undersöker Wendy Brown hur det alltmer intensiva murbyggandet hänger samman med nationalstaternas försvagade suveränitet. Med utgångspunkt i denna skenbara paradox analyserar Brown hur statens jakt på legitimitet och människors sökande efter säkerhet strålar samman i spektakulära men i slutänden ineffektiva manifestationer av statlig suveränitet. De nya murarna representerar en längtan efter stabila horisonter i ett sammanhang där de flesta sådana horisonter tenderar att upplösas.

Wendy Brown är professor i statsvetenskap vid Universitetet i Berkeley, Kalifornien. Hon är författare till ett flertal uppmärksammade böcker, bland vilka märks States of Injury och Regulating Aversion. På svenska finns sedan tidigare artikelsamlingen Att vinna framtiden åter.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Political Science, Geography, History

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Wendy L. Brown is an American political theorist. She is Class of 1963 First Professor of Political Science and a core faculty member in The Program for Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[hami · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was first published in 2010. I read the later edition published in 2017 with Wendy Brown’s new preface. The quotes at the beginning of each chapter are most accurately describing the main ideas presented. The book examines the ideas and motives behind the contemporary national wall-building, from the lens of political sovereignty. Brown brings forward a great number of classical and contemporary political scientists who have worked on the idea of sovereignty, territory, and walling. Writers such as Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paul Hirst, Achille Mbembe and many others. The most important contribution that Brown makes in this book is to elucidate the idea that theological aspect of nation-state sovereignty comes to the surface at the moment of its erosion. And the new walls are theatrical or symbolic gestures to visually compensate for this waning sovereignty. This juncture of “theology” and “performativity” seems to be the most interesting factor for Brown in examining the contemporary walls.

On the theory of contemporary nation-state’s sovereignty, Brown’s idea has a contrast to that of Hardt and Negri (Nation-state sovereignty has transformed into global Empire) or Giorgio Agamben (sovereignty has metamorphosed into the worldwide production and sacrifice of bare life). Brown thesis is that the key characteristics of sovereignty have “migrated” from the nation-state to (1) the unrelieved domination of capital and (2) God sanctioned political violence.

Brown’s political philosophy is built upon works of Foucault in STP and “Society Must be Defended” (the idea that power is not solid or easily visible, power is the means to conduct the conduct) and Carl Schmitt (A Nazi political theorist, who strongly believed in “nation-state sovereignty” or “Westphalian sovereignty”). Schmitt saw decisionism as the signature characteristics of sovereignty or sovereign power. Schmitt’s emphasis on the concrete distinction between friend and enemy and its essentialism can be seen in the background of Brown’s book as antithesis. She reminds us that, today, Schmitt’s cluster of definitions and concepts are outdated. However, his contribution that nation-state sovereignty has a theological aspect, is utilized by Brown in this work.

Brown differentiates between legal and political sovereignty:
* Legal: Corresponds to the idea of Authority, based on the idea of command.
* Political: Correspond to the idea of Power, Compliance, and ability to govern.

In the last chapter, she presents the analysis of religion by Freud, which she admits is coming from the German tradition (made by people such as Nietzsche, Marx, Feuerbach, and Weber) and later by Freud’s daughter Anna, in “The Ego and Mechanism of Defense”. The view is that religion “arises” from an unbreakable experience of human venerability and dependency in both the natural and social world. Brown makes an observation that enclosure brings sacred into being. The theological and religious aspect of nation-state comes forward when people fear its loss. She presents a very convincing argument in contrast to the neo-Marxist analysis of walls by Žižek and Mike Davis. These orthodox-Marxist-boys insist that the new walls are the ideal regulatory scheme for neoliberalism. Goods go around easily while humans don’t.

In the beginning chapter, she mentions apartheid and Israeli wall, followed by the 4th Genova convention that prohibits building settlements on occupied territories and foreign land. It is mostly inspired by Eyal Weizman and his “Politics of Verticality”. As an example, Brown also mentions the right-wing ad-hoc vigilante groups that conduct border security in the U.S/Mexico border such as Minuteman. She writes that these groups are aiming to retain “the masculinity that state has lost”.

In regard to the US/Mexico wall, almost all her sources are from the USA side, maybe that’s because she doesn’t speak any language aside from English. The bulk of the book seems to be about the US/Mexico wall, however, there are many quick examples of modern walls at the beginning of the book. Although, later she admits this issue and says that this theory can “easily” apply anywhere else in the world! Which can be seen as a naïve statement.

The gaping hole of the book is contemporary racism, Islamophobia and white-supremacy that is only mentioned a few times in passing. There is no chapter dedicated to racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia which seems to be the main driver of popular belief in modern walls. Even though her work has a much more accurate description of the current situation of human mobility than orthodox-Marxists-boys like Žižek and Davis, when it comes to migration, Brown’s concept stays in the traditional European academy; reducing human lives to numbers and news headlines. It does not include any voices of the migrants, radicalized peoples who have experienced the border regimes, and millions of middle-class families who had to start from nothing after migration (legal or illegal).

Brown does not give any international context on human flow. The fact that 85% of migrants globally are living outside of Europe and North America is missing from the book. To a person unfamiliar with global migration studies, this book would misguidedly imply that all migration is toward the north and also towards the west –By itself a Eurocentric view on the current condition.

She does not mention imperialism or colonialism and their connection to today’s walls. Reversely, and perhaps effectively, she uses the “1650 Westphalian International order” which is now used in opposition to globalism by both right-wing fascists and orthodox-leftists.

The vocabulary of the book is problematic. She doesn’t unpack or politicize any pre-existing hegemonic categories such as illegal immigration, terrorism, etc. Maybe methodologically she assumes that the readers are from West and therefore her views are based on the Western tradition. When she borrows the word “theology” from Schmitt, she does not debunk the cultural and linguistic side of the theory. Schmitt did not know much about Islam or Judaism (aside from hating them), for him, the word “theology“ was synonymous to Christianity, (probably did not even think about all the polytheistic religions).

Overall, the book offers zero perspectives from migrant, indigenous and state-less peoples. It stays within the academy, as an expert talking about horrors that are happening or will happen to “others". On the topic of walls, borders, and border regimes, it would be more effective if we read people who have experienced imperialism, exclusion and the constant presence of abstract or concrete walls. People such as Shahram Khosravi, Mohammad Chaichian, and Harsha Walia might offer another insight into the same problematic.

“the very fact that the people are declared sovereign in Western democracies while the appellation of sovereign power is given to autocratic state action and especially to action that violates or suspends democratic principles suggests that we have known all along that popular sovereignty has been, if not a fiction, something of an abstraction with, tenuous hearing on political reality.” (page 46)

insideanairport
***

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. This is such an important book in a historical moment where there is a renewed surge of walls being constructed at odds with liberal ideals, both constituting new borders and shoring up older ones, at phenomenal costs but with little practical functionality in regards to their purported aims. Brown argues that these walls, from the Israeli apartheid wall to the US-Mexico border wall and more, are largely performative - a theatrical display of a masculinist, militaristic and territorial nation-state sovereignty that is globally in decline. She suggests that in this neoliberal era, capital is the global sovereign and as such walls allow for permeability in the service of capital yet provide a glorified and hyper-physical display of a revived 'national security' that excludes (in ebbs and flows according to the strength of the economy) racialised masses of cheap labourers and supposed "terrorists".

My favourite chapter was 'Sovereignty and Enclosure' in which Brown interrogates theories of spatial sovereignty (fences, government and especially Carl Schmitt) and also examines the relations between sovereignty, autonomy and democracy (she writes that sovereignty is inherently antidemocratic insofar as it must overcome the dispersed quality of power in a democracy).

Brown is a brilliant and clear writer, her arguments are systematic and logical. LOVE HER!

[Akram Khatam]

دولت و دیوار
وندی براون، ترجمه سهند ستاری
کتاب از چندین دیوار در جهان نئولیبرال می گوید ولی بر دو دیوار تاکید دارد:
دیوار مکزیک و امریکا و دیوار حائل .دو دیوار بشدت محبوب و ناکارآمد. در اینجا بر دیوار اول تاکید دارم.
_دیوارها در دوره نئولیبرال در چهارچوب دولت ملتها ساخته نمی شوند، به منافع ملی بی اعتنایند و بسیاری از قوانین را زیر پا می گذارند.آنها به منافع فراملی پاسخ می دهند: اقتصاد سیاسی و خشونت مشروع مذهبی.
_حاکمیتها از ۵۰ سال قبل دچار افول شدند و جریانات فراملی نقش بالا یافتند. اتحادهای مذهبی و سیاسی مرزها را رد کردند و حاکمیت دولت ملت را بخطر انداختند.تنها حاکمیت مالی بازار و سرمایه گذار به رسمیت شناخته شد و جنون دیوار کشی بوجود آمد.
_دیوارها اهداف مختلفی را دنبال می کنند:
دیوار در آسیا ج،غ ، ممانعت از ورود مهاجران
دیوارهای خاورمیانه، امنیت در برابر تروریسم( دیوار سبز بغداد)
دیوار ازبکستان و قرقیزستان ،درگیری مرزی
دیوار مراکش، عدم ورود آفریقایی ها به منطقه اسپانیایی ها
دیوار حائل، اشغال و استعمارگری
دیوار برلین ،حفاظت از سوژه‌های بی دفاع از انحطاط بیرون
دیوار امریکا و مکزیک جدایی جهان جنوب از جهان شمال

دیوارها از دل خصومت با مهاجرین و نیاز سرمایه‌داری بوجود می آیند. اولین بخش دیوار مکزیک در ۱۹۹۰ در سن دیه‌گو ساخته شد. نتیجه آن کاهش جرم و جنایت در شهرها بود ولی مهاجرین به سمت شرق رو آوردند و صنعت قاچاق انسان رونق گرفت.
از سال ۲۰۰۰ برای دیوار کشی ۳۶ قانون ملغی شد، قوانینی چون محیط زیست، زمینهای مقدس بومیان، آلودگی آب و هوا، گونه های در حال انقراض، میراث فرهنگی و....
هیلاری کلینتون به کارشناس دیوار ضد مهاجرت غیر قانونی معروف است.این دیوارها مسیر مهاجرت را مسدود نمی کنند، تغییر می دهند.
ساخت هر مایل دیوار کشی بین ۷۰-۱۶ م دلار هزینه دارد و موجب مرگ بیشتر مهاجرین، هزینه سنگین مهاجرت و در نتیجه تبدیل مهاجرت فصلی به دائمی می شود.
دیوارها محصول تناقضات استعمار توسعه طلبانه برای یکپارچگی و توانایی حاکم جهان اول است. جهان اول علت خشونت های کشورشان را به بیرون نسبت می دهند و به بیگانه هراسی دامن می زنند.
دیوارها فقط محصور نمی کنند بلکه محتوا ملتهای محصور را هم تولید می کنند.
ذهنیت بانکری
بانکر‌ها مکانهای زیرزمینی بلااستفاده ای اند که برای حفاظت افراد از بمبارانهای هسته ای و بلایای طبیعی بوجود آمدند. ذهنیت بانکری استعاره ای است از ذهنیت دشمن تراش و در معرض خطر دائمی که به شرایط “آرماگدون “ یا آخر الزمانی می انجامد و موجب استحکام سیاست خارجه امریکا در سال‌های ۶۰_۵۰ قرن پیش می شود. بانکر آغاز عصری است که قدرت یک سلاح چنان است که آدم دیگری از هیچ فاصله در امان نیست، مثل پوست جانوری منقرض شده افتاده بر ساحل، آخرین ژست نمایشی در دوران آخر تاریخ نظامی غرب .
حاکمیت‌ها در دوره افول استحال، تهاجمی و الهیاتی میشوند. جرج بوش اقداماتش در گستراندن آزادی را عطیه خدایی می نامد.او برای محافظت از زندگی انسان بدنیا نیامده (جنین)، حرمت ازدواج ( مخالفت با ازدواج همجنسگرایان) به خدا استناد می کند. جنگ خدایان مسیحیت، اسلام، هندی، یهودی برقرار است.
قدرتمندترین و بزرگترین لابی امریکایی برساخته اسرائیل، آی پک، سالانه میلیونها دلار صرف می کند تا نفوذ اسرائیل بر سیاستها و قوانین امریکا حفظ شود. نفوذ الهیات در حاکمیت، سرمایه را به امری مطلق، دائمی و غیرپاسخگو بدل می کند و بدور از نفوذ مردم و مردم را به هوموساکر بدل میکند.( هوموساکر اصطلاحی حقوقی در رم باستان بود، به این معنی که برخی مجرمان را می توان انسان‌هایی دانست که کشتن آنها در مراسم آیینی ممنوع است اما به اصطلاح مهدورالدم اند و اگر کسی آنها را بکشد از مجازات مصون است)
ریشه حاکمیت مذهبی از دل آسیب پذیرترین انسان‌ها بیرون می آید چون میل به حفاظت در دل دارد.، واکنشی به حاکمان بی قدرت سرمایه و خشونت مشروع مذهبی که در صدد محافظت از اتباع خوداند.
دیوارها واکنشی اند به اضطراب اتباع شان و در عمل به بی قانونی دامن می زنند. دیوارها پاسخی‌اند به زوال ملیت منسجم.
دیوارها ��لوی روستایی مکزیکی که برای کار به مهاجرت اقدام می کند را نمی گیرد. در مرز مکزیک در سن دیگو_تیخوانا دیواری فولادی سه لایه و ۴/۵ متری مجهز به حسگر با گشت زمینی و هلی‌کوپتری قرار دارد. در ۱۳ سال اخیر ۵۰۰۰ مهاجر در مسیر مهاجرت مردند و سفرها بشدت گرانتر ، طولانی تر و سختر شده است و مهاجر بعد از رسیدن دیگر بر نمی گردد. دیوارها سعی در مهار نیروی‌کار دارند ولی دست نیروی‌نامحدود سرمایه را باز می گذارند. نتیجه دیوارکشی ایجاد صنعت پر رونق قاچاق انسان و قاچاق مواد مخدر است.
دیوارها برای رای گرفتن از اتباع نژادپرست کشیده میشوند. دیوارها در واقع طرز فکر اتباع را کنترل می کنند. حصار کشی یعنی کاری نکنید ولی وانمود کنید کاری می کنید. خشونت سرمایه‌داری فاجعه می افریند و دیوارها موجه بنظر می رسند، فاجعه آرژانتین دهه۱۹۷۰، چین ۱۹۸۰، روسیه دهه ۱۹۹۰، عراق بعد از حمله امریکا، حتی نئورلئان بعد از طوفان کاترینا. شیوع فقر ناامید کننده ای که افراد را به کارگر روز مزد جهان شمال بدل می کند، آن هم با دستمزدی افتضاح. تولید کننده برنج تایلندی را به فروشنده بلیط بخت آزمایی بدل می کند.
هانا آرنت به آنها” توده‌های بی‌دولت “می گوید.

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could this be the definitive work on political wall-making?

"The argument of this book goes further to suggest that walls do not merely index, but accelerate waning state sovereignty: they blur the policing and military functions of states; they generate new vigilantisms at borders; they expand the transnational links and powers of organized crime; they intensify nationalist identifications that in turn spur demands for greater exercises o state sovereignty, more effective walling, and less flexibility in responding to globalization’s vicissitudes and volatilities" (p.10).

[Jack Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think brown’s argument is interesting and she may have a point, but her evidence/justification is in no way convincing. for the amount of content in here, this could’ve been about 30-40 pages. i feel like most of this is spent just talking in circles.

[Anita Zorzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

pensavo fosse molto più recente, molto interessante

[Eliane Da · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leitura obrigatória para se refletir sobre os aspectos politicos, sociais, economicos e psicologicos que influenciaram e influenciam a organização dos espaços urbanos e comportamentos coletivos neste contexto.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the longest time now, Wendy Brown has been writing about limits. The limits of rights, the limits of critique, the limits of liberalism. It was only a matter of time then, that the limit in its most palpable and tangible sense would be taken up by this intrepid borderland explorer, subject to her searing philosophical and political gaze: the limit of the border wall. And as with all her frontier travels, it's the political productivity of the limit-wall, the ways in which it shapes and even engenders the realities which it both bounds and is bound by, that constitutes the subject of this sharply argued book.

And while plaited with insight from beginning to end, at its heart lies the thesis that walls, far from being emblems of state strength, indicate nothing less than the failing - or rather waning - sovereignty of just those self-same states. As literal monuments to the deterioration of state power, they nonetheless function to posture and project the very image of potency so valued and now lost. To these modern - and rather ineffective - totems of state protection one imagines asking: ‘who you trying to convince there buddy? Me or you?’.

Yet ineffectiveness is not unproductiveness, and at stake in Brown’s book are precisely the ways in which walls are nonetheless generative of effects far in excess of their stated purposes. Hence Brown’s efforts to trace the ways in walls intensify and exacerbate the very energies of aggression and anxiety they are meant to check. Unable to safely cross, migrants now stay for ever-longer periods of time, while on the border itself violence and criminality have become all the more entrenched, ratcheted up by the increasing sophistication of smugglers and the growing vigilantism of self-organised border 'militias’.

With an eye as ever fixed on political theory however, it’s to the implications on and of sovereignty that marks this book’s major contribution to the field. Diagnosed here as having been ‘detached’ from the nation-state, Walled States attends to the changing shape of sovereignty in a world marked by ever growing transnational flows of people, goods, ideas and capital. Buffeted on all sides, it’s to its theological roots - so aptly theorised by Carl Schmitt - that sovereignty ‘turns’, affirming ever more hyperbolically its absoluteness, its inviolability, and its substantiality: witness the wall; or, as I write this seven years after the publication of this fine little tract - our contemporary condition.

[Leonardo]

Los muros que están creciendo ahora por todo el mundo no son de la misma naturaleza que el Muro de Berlín, el icono de la Guerra Fría. Los muros actuales no parecen pertenecer al mismo concepto, ya que el mismo muro a menudo cumple distintas funciones: defensa contra el terrorismo, contra los inmigrantes ilegales, contra el contrabando, como encubrimiento para el apoderamiento colonial de tierras, etc. Sin embargo, Wendy Brown tiene razón al insistir en que, a pesar de esta apariencia de multiplicidad, estamos tratando aquí con el mismo fenómeno, incluso si los ejemplos no se perciben normalmente como casos del mismo concepto. Los muros actuales son una reacción a la amenaza a la soberanía del Estado-nación que plantea el actual proceso de globalización: «En vez de renacientes expresiones de la soberanía del Estadonación, los nuevos muros son iconos de su erosión. Aunque pueden parecer hiperbólicas pruebas de semejante soberanía, como toda hipérbole revelan el temblor, la vulnerabilidad, las dudas o la inestabilidad en el centro de lo que intentan expresar; cualidades que son ellas mismas la antítesis de la soberanía y por ello elementos de su ruina».

Viviendo en el Final de los Tiempos Pág.469

[Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fortunate and prescient find of mine not long ago at a bookstore I frequent.
Walls represent a place at the edge of a nation state (and I refer to liberal democracies here and for further clarification I mean representative democracy with market liberalism) whereby law and its implementation-an authoritarian power- are no longer masked behind the usual res publica (by the people). A wall is illustrative that the liberal-democratic fiction of 'freedom' both begins and ends not with any real decision by citizens but rather authoritarian power in the service of establishing a box around which to enforce property rights, and class hierarchies.
In a sense then walls also serve as an update to the old Roman fasces (the fasces contains both an axe wrapped by rods whereby the axe represented hard power- the power to kill and the rods- soft power to coerce).
The perils of representative democracies are also represented here. At some point in time walls, like the fasces, can easily, quietly and very effectively be turned from keeping people out into keeping people in with neither enforcer nor population being aware of the shift until such hard power is enforced on the country itself.
It's fitting then that American fascism ought to rise precisely on a campaign with a wall on the Mexican border being its crown jewel.

[Raymond Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was fairly easy to read and presented an interesting take on the construction of border fences. However Brown just out and out dismisses certain walls in order to focus on the American and Israeli border constructions. It's an interesting analysis but when you exclude other examples like Brown did it makes me question the applicability of the writing and her theory's overall validity.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant brief contending that the real purpose of the global boom in border fortifications is not so much to keep anything out as it is to reinforce belief in the increasingly threatened existence of the sovereign nation-state. Published over five years ago, it now seems even more prescient than before.

[Isabel Schmieta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

"The new walls target the movements of peoples and goods often drawn by the pull within destination nations for immigrant labor, drugs, weapons , and other contraband, and not only from the press without. 12 Ideologically, the dangers that walls are figured as intercepting are not merely the would-be suicide bomber, but immigrant hordes; not merely violence to the nation , but imagined dilution of national identity through transformed ethnicized or racial demographics; not merely illegal entrance, but unsustainable pressure on national economies that have ceased to be national or on wel fare states that have largely abandoned substantive welfare functions. As such, the new walls defend an inside against an outside where these terms " inside" and "outside" do not necessarily correspond to nation - state identity or fealty, that is, where otherness and difference are detached from jurisdiction and membership, even as the walls themselves would seem to denote and demarcate precisely these things. Walls today articulate an inside/outside distinction in which what is on the
inside and being defended and what is on the outside and being repelled are not particular states or citizens, indeed, in which subjects, political power, political identity, and violence may be territorially detached from states and sovereignty on both sides." (page 82)


In a world where walls and borders are mentioned constantly, this book was a very interesting read. The first two chapters were required for my thesis course and we briefly discussed excerpts in my Border Fictions course, but I was intrigued and decided to read the rest.

Brown provides a very holistic and interdisciplinary approach to the topic and I find it to be quite an important read to anyone who wishes to discuss borders, specifically in regards to walls, especially the US-Mexican border.

[Matthew Mendenhall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is incredible, so I thank my professor for making me read it. It’s clearly written by a social democrat about neoliberal polities with very clear incoherent struggles primarily in the form of barriers and walls to anyone who is interested in politics. There’s room for disagreement with Brown, but there is room for learning new things about the nature of your politics, say conservatism. Overall, I think I grasp about 60-75% of what Brown is saying, so that’s a warning to its erudition if you’re not a political thinker. The book is a case for why walls are happening at all. She is pretty confident that most people when argued with eventually concede that walls (thus nations) are not impenetrable. Instead, walls make people feel better about themselves and their government. Today’s world is a world of woke capital, international travel, and trade. The nation state is increasingly irrelevant which is a direct threat to nation state sovereignty that was inspired by THEOS (or God) in the Westphalian era. The wall is the dying breath of God; the state. Wendy seems to be asking you, the reader, if you are willing to uphold the state and all of its mythologies, or concede the state to global conditions of international immigration and capital. Wendy seems perplexed, maybe disappointed, that the Fall of the Berlin Wall did not usher in global freedom of movement like the new global order seemed to promise to usher in.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up during the Princeton book sale (I'm pretty sure).

A work incredibly dense with theory from multiple fields of education, ranging from deep political science not limited to its relation with theology to sociology to gender theory (Freud being referenced to provide a complement to the writing at times) that took me some time to get through. I definitely didn't comprehend all of the theory here, but am glad to have gotten some of them, all worth pondering on some more.

I went into this expecting to be more fascinated by the walls section - geopolitics and all - but I found myself a lot more drawn to the sections covering sovereignty in isolation. The comparisons between individual rights - widely recognized by liberal democrats worldwide as universal human rights - and the sovereignty of nations having a similar feel, again by the same audience. And then there's the often ugly question for that audience is by who, or by what, are these rights and this sovereignty given? Unfortunately the UK has an easy answer here, but it's something to wonder as an American.

Filled with great ideas that take a long time to dissect (and I'm sure I will continue to do so well after this finds rest on my shelf), though its quick paced leaps from one theory to another before relating theories from across the book together make it difficult to consume without at least a good poli sci background.

[Geoffrey Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using powerful theory and precise historical, political, and economic analyses, Wendy Brown dissects nation-state sovereignty and wall building, using the USA-Mexico and Israeli Border Wall as feature examples. The short but powerful book details the apparent destruction of nation identity that gives rise to the phenomenon of modern wall building, as the title suggests.

Though written and published just before the 2016 US election, this book seems to be written in a direct response to the notion of extending and fortifying the US-Mexico wall that was prominent during the campaign. This book details in sometimes fine detail the effects such a wall may (or will) have on the nation state, including terrorism, immigration, the so-called war on drugs, and much more. However, despite the seemingly endless directions Brown could take to support her positions, I found several of her main points repeated a little too much for my liking.

Likes:
-absolutely fascinating to read in the current US political state.
-short but powerful (nice if academic writing isn't your thing).

Dislikes:
-A bit repetitive, but (again) could be because of the academic writing.

[Diego Lovegood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buenísimo análisis del porqué se siguen construyendo muros a pesar de su ineficacia. Muy abordable su lectura para alguien alejado de las ciencias políticas. Aprendí mucho en su recorrido por los conceptos de soberanía.

[Eli Entrenebras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las ideas que plantea son extraordinariamente interesantes, pero tal vez si las hubiera expuesto una sola vez en lugar de repetirlas alrededor de 50 veces en cada página habría sido una lectura más ligera

[Rhea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for class and it was tricky to wrap my head around. Interesting but very complicated and dense argument and there's a lot to unpack within this book.

[Lelia Solitaire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letto in buona parte - anche se non totalmente - ma non sono d'accordo con la tesi fondamentale che l'autrice vuole sostenere.

[Kostas · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I had to read this for one of my poli-sci liberal courses I did a while back.

The way Brown approaches arguing her point in this book is by constantly engaging the reader in theory and discussion around sovereignty. Brown does this by effectively drawing upon early modern political philosophers such as Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, and historians like Greg Eghigian, to describe sovereignty, and essentially argue her points for her.

Dislikes: I did not like her writing style...felt very dry and felt like she forced lots of big words which from a layperson's standpoint on the subject, makes it in my opinion less coherent and thus at many times hard to follow. I also would have preferred more inclusion of current discourse around the subject from current political thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama, Jacqueline Stevens, etc. and through them try and lay out not just what she thinks is happening, but what others in her field are also saying.

Likes: She did raise some good and interesting points which definitely add to the literature about the declining sovereignty of the nation-state in the 21st century, and what that ultimately means for the future of the state`s influence over it`s people. She also brings up issues surrounding bordered walls which coincide with my opinions of why they are just set up to fail in the end.

Overall she describes sovereignty having shifted from the nation-state, into money and religiously driven violence, and also goes beyond wall-building as just an erroneous response to things like immigration. She uses her thesis to bring forth paradoxical features of border walls, and to further argue that the creating of walls by nation-states can be seen as a psychological response to the modern phenomenon of increasing transnational powers that are weakening the state.

3.5/5 writing style hurt it for me as a person pretty foreign to political science literature, but would still say worth a read regardless.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendy Brown's book takes on a particular kind of salience towards the end of 2016 as we await the concrete consequences of the Trumpian plans to build a wall on the US southern border. For the most part, the political development is rather irrelevant. As Brown points out in the book, there is already a significant portion of the border consisting of walled parts whose ostentatiousness are exactly what such plans would aim to replicate and expand, while remaining heavily limited in their efficacy, and in fact probably just aiding an ever-growing smuggling industry. (see Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe)

On the other hand, the current political dystopia in the US, while of course reiterating and emphasizing how the neoliberal order has produced a serious crisis of sovereignty among nation-states, might also be a dent to the reciprocal legitimacy of such walling efforts with the ridiculousness of Trump's plan clear for all to see. That, or I'm projecting some wishful thinking here.

Either way, there's no doubt that borders are one of the defining topics of the last few years, and if one is interested in reading reflections on their consequences on 21st century national identity, Brown's book presents one of the most compelling analyses of the issue. Above all, the next couple of decades will make clear whether the current struggle for nation-state sovereignty in the face of globalization will result in the recovery of the nation in what she calls a "vanishing political imaginary in a global interregnum" or whether we can expect an alternate global order.

[Full Stop]

http://www.full-stop.net/2011/02/18/r...

Review by Michael Schapira

You show me a 50-foot fence and I’ll show you
a 51-foot ladder at the border.
-Janet Napolitano

One of the important lessons that a reader will take away from Walled States, Waning Sovereignty, of which there are many, is that if you want to write an interesting piece of social and political analysis, pick a topic riddled with contradictions that happens to reside in plain sight. Wendy Brown, a professor of Political Science and Critical Theory at UC Berkeley, chooses to focus on the increasingly familiar phenomenon of erecting physical barriers – both at the edges of sovereign territories and within – in an age of globalization that in its most utopian moments promises to make such barriers obsolete. Noting the variety of people, goods, and information that these walls are meant to keep out, Brown isolates three key paradoxes that walling projects share:

1) An announcement of the arrival of a world without borders (the dreams of cosmopolitans, neoliberals, and humanitarians) occurs simultaneously with popular support for wall construction at national boundaries.

Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2011/02/18/r...

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was basically awesome. wendy brown is a great writer and illuminates connections I've never really thought about before. I highly recommend this, especially the first chapter.

I do have two quibbles:
1. I'm not totally convinced that national sovereignty is experiencing the kind of dramatic abridgement Brown describes. hasn't sovereignty, in practice, always been kind of conditional? the idea of secure sovereignty seems like the idea of the post-war golden age of labour, more nostalgic (& first-world centred) fantasy than fact...I need to think more about this and read more history. I guess she's talking just as much, if not more, about the fear of loss of sovereignty as the fact of it. but that brings me to my second quibble:

2. I'm not super comfortable with analyses of political developments that psychologise them so heavily (about a quarter of this book is about Freud). I don't wanna posit a simple Marxist economically determinist theory of ideology, but I do want to look more at who benefits materially from nationalist anxiety. (this is also the main issue I have with Ghassan Hage.)

[Andrew Murano · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Our immediate priority is to prevent more people from dying at sea. We have therefore decided to strengthen our presence at sea, to fight the traffickers, to prevent illegal migration flows and to reinforce internal solidarity." - Special meeting of the European Council, 23 April 2015

In order to "save" the growing number of migrants dying trying to cross the Mediterranean, the political rhetoric across Europe has been on building a "wall" around Europe. As Wendy Brown shows in "Walled States, Waning Sovereignty," building walls is not about creating any sort of physical security for the enclosed "sovereign" nation, but rather to build walls in our head, for the illusion of safety from the Other on the outside. "Porous borders, the story goes, permit the flow of drugs, crime, and terror into a civilized nation whose only crime was to be too prosperous, generous, tolerant, open, and free." As Europe continues to build its walls, more migrants will continue to make the risky journey, more will die, and We will continue to become more fearful of the those on the outside.

[Peter N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this, but it let me down a little - I guess I was far more interested in walls and states than in sovereignty, waning or otherwise. Chapters One and Three were pretty solid, excellent in parts, but the other two chapters were patchy. I never really felt like I was following an argument as such, and I agree with Liz's point that Brown is a bit sloppy when it comes to clarifying whether sovereignty really is waning, or the mere appearance of decline is enough to produce the same effects. Partly I think that aspect is so apparent because she is in most other respects so doggedly meticulous. Still, I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is very well argued and written, I feel this is not Wendy Brown at her finest. The arguments seem a bit derivative. Here she is not saying what has not been said before by many authors she cites--f.e. Eyal Weisman. However, she does articulate the scope of the theoretical debates on sovereignty in the age of neoliberal globalization very well. A good introductory read for those unfamiliar with this literature.

[Bookshark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading and thinking about sovereignty for months without being able to get a grasp on contemporary sovereignty. With this short book, Brown has clarified a number of critical points for me. Finally, someone has put the pieces together in a way that retains rather than diluting the salience of the modernist definition of sovereignty while also recognizing its inevitable incompleteness and positing a vision of post-Westphalian sovereignty!

[Chris Hamby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, and Brown's thesis is compelling. Still, I wish she explored the new walls in a broader context. The phenomenon was presented as a global trend, but the focus was largely US/Israel-centric.

[Catalina · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit tricky this one