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Abstract:
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Departing from an elaboration of the idea of a citizenship protection nexus (1), the argument developed below is that the introduction of a neo-liberal governance forms security is leading to far reaching (but largely unacknowledged). It is transforming the understanding of the rights to protection that come with citizenship, de facto transforming it from a general right tied to political citizenship to contracted right to be negotiated (2). At the same time, far from working to weakening the role of the state in security provision, the market is reinforcing it (3) and accentuating the military aspect of protection (4). The overall consequence is that the nexus tying citizenship to protection is increasingly shaped by the commercialized national and military concerns (promoted by public and private security professionals). As this paper concludes, attempts to frame and shape the citizenship-protection nexus in alternative ways—for example attempts to de-link citizenship from states and/or to de-militarize citizenship—are the main causalities of this re-ordering. |