(iPoster) Internal Fortifications and the Idea of the State

• In Event: Poster Session: Conflict Processes 1

Abstract

State use of fortifications as mechanisms of power projection, subjugation, and social control. Internal fortifications (walls, checkpoints, closure obstacles and guard towers) warrant particular scholarly attention because they create ideal conditions for state agents
to violate the most basic rights of their own citizens. Where internal fortifications are built, they often fail to resolve–—indeed, exacerbate—–security issues: military necessity is neither their sole design nor primary consequence, and that state capacity alone cannot explain their use. Considering fortifications built in Northern Ireland and the West Bank, I inductively build theory about the conditions under which states use internal fortifications and test that theory in two out-of-sample cases, India and Kenya. I suggest states build internal fortifications when a group or movement gets constructed as an existential threat to the existing political order. In other words, states build internal fortifications in response to the groups and movements most significantly challenging the idea of the state herself. Internal fortifications are the apparatus of state surveillance, discipline, and punishment. Their presence visualizes and disseminates the threat of state violence into the very
fabric of daily public and private life for certain citizens, while enhancing feelings of safety for core constituents. Because internal fortifications enable a security policy that can violate more rights of citizens, the policy rationale for where and how they are built is deserving of scholars’ scrutiny.

Author

• Emily K. Gade, University of Oregon