From Bare Life to Bureaucratic Capitalism: Analyzing the Growth of the Immigration Detention Industry as a Complex Organization

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Publication Title

Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice

DOI

10.22381/CRLSJ8120164

ISSN

2162-2752

Abstract

The work of post-structuralist political philosopher Giorgio Agamben(1998, 2005) has had a major influence on the study of immigration detention inEurope and elsewhere. In particular, his concepts

homo sacer (“bare life”) and “zonesof exemption” depict the growth of immigration detention regimes as an expressionof sovereign power through inclusive exclusion. In other words, states demonstratetheir power to confer rights upon their citizens by denying those rights to others.This paper argues that post-structuralist approaches to the study of immigrationdetention present a number of theoretical and conceptual problems. Post-structuralistanalyses focusing on discourses divorced from actors present teleological problemsin terms of theory. Additionally, post-structural accounts of detention centers usingconcepts such as homo sacer and Banoptican (see Bigo 2007) tend to conflate humanrights and citizenship rights, which does not hold up empirically because manyasylum seekers and irregular migrants still have access to legal redress. In contrast topost-structural accounts, the notion of “bureaucratic capitalism” developed bysociologist Gideon Sjoberg (1999) provides an analytical framework that is bothcritical and non-deterministic in explaining the motives of many actors involved indetention regimes. Specifically, immigration detention can be explained by employ-ing conceptual tools useful for understanding complex organizations that focus onthe corporate-state nexus; human agency; rationalization processes like specializationand division of labor; hierarchy, responsibility, and blameability; and secrecy systems.This paper reviews the literature on the post-structuralist debate of immigrationdetention and provides primary and secondary data on the growth of detention in theUS and Europe, the financial resources employed, and the role of social actors andtheir relations organized according to Sjoberg’s conceptual framework. It concludesby arguing that this alternative meso-level theory provides critical insights intodetention regimes as well as the role of private- and public-sector interests seekingrents. Moreover, seeing immigration detention as a complex organization helpsreveal the causes of human rights violations as well as their possible redress

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