Biopolitics of Border: EU Security Challenges and the Future of Schengen

By: Bhagya Raj Rathod

The Schengen system was one of the most unique and post-modern ideas the reimagined borders in the International Politics. The idea of weakening of borders and handing it to a supranational entity where the Nation-States that for centuries had waged wars for its borders seems a newer imagination of taking integration to the next level. The Schengen that came into effect around 1995 had the idea

The crises of Mediterranean and various other challenges like terrorist attacks made the Schengen System precarious. The paper aims to look at the ideas of border migration and security through a theoretical perspective and indulges in the debates of security on whose security is more important and then dives into the concept of biopolitics and irregular migrants and tries to relate it to concepts such as biopolitical borders and EU’s security and the future of Schengen.

Debates on security challenges in European Union, Whose security anyway?

The prominent understanding with regards to Europe’s migration problem is found across the understanding of non-academic and critique through the academic and problematizing the uncertainties amongst the neo-liberal policies of EU towards irregular migrants more of rhetoric of a humanitarian policies than actually understanding the violent realities. In the recent times issues relating to the International migration has been one of the most contested area and is boxed in the idea of ‘New Security Agenda’ and has been under the radar of security studies since the 1980s.

There are debates that are explored on whether migration is considered as a security issue or not. There needs to be a better understanding when talking about Migration as security issues, as it is important to know if it is a security issue to the Nation-State or Humans. Since the times of early civilization, the idea of other always has brought in a kind of suspicions and also hatred, the incoming international migrants to the Europe bring in new lifestyle, culture, values and traditions and it is taken as a threat and they are although associated with crimes, terrorism and health threat and Khalid Koser in his article points out that these threat perceptions are usually overestimated. The Nation-States idea of security threat comes from the managing the borders and things that may weaken the states sovereignty hence the threat to states sovereignty seems like a justifiable reason for large surveillance systems, detention centres and deportation of these irregular or illegal migrants.

The two contesting ideas of National Security versus the human security is always debated. Does the security of the state outweigh the security of humans or the irregular/illegal migrants then?  Kerwin contests these ideas and figures out that these debates of National Security and Human Security are not exclusive to each other but a proper policy of national security should only further human security.

The other side of the security debate is of the migration is only from South to North and the idea of most of the irregular migrants ending up in Europe is untrue as most irregular migrants are situated in developing countries as transit or destination and these developing countries take most burden of migrants in the crises of Syria or Iraq. These Eurocentric arguments focus on only developed countries where as the situation of developing countries carrying the un-proportional burden of irregular migrants is ignored.

In 2014 the crisis through Mediterranean came into the mainstream, as irregular migrants through the boats tried to seek asylum in the EU. According to European agency on border security reported that almost 90% of irregular migrants came from the Mediterranean and made ways into European through Italy. The response of the European Union towards this situation brought out the discrepancies between the National Security and the Human Security approach.  The changing public opinion and the rise of right-wing governments in the European Union points out to the impact on the balance of the national security versus human security approach towards irregular migrants.

The Biopolitics of Border:

Foucault Biopower and irregular Migrants

Aristotle imagined the spheres of ‘life’ and ‘politics’ as different arenas but the shift to look at life as the primary domain of politics was emphasized by Foucault. Biopolitics marks a significant shift from the politics of sovereignty to the politics of society. For Foucault the power is fluid and it cannot be acquired, it can be seen through the relations in which they function. He argues that sovereign had a right to decide over the life and death, this derived from the idea of patria potestas roughly translated to the power of the father to dispose children and slave in Roman family. So, placing this as central the sovereign has the power to kill, that means to save its own life the sovereign can kill and it derives its power through that. He promulgates two forms of power one is biopower and other is disciplinary power and according to him disciplinary power was needed to enhance the rise of modern capitalism and due to this he suggests that the older idea of sovereign of ‘to kill’ was replaced by either to ‘to make live and let die’. 

Liberalism at its core has a complex relationship with freedom that means that the freedom is produced but this production of freedom means also production of limitations, forms of coercion etc. This idea of producing the limitations to the freedom is referred by Foucault as security.

The tools to maintain the equilibrium of the state that does not disturb its produced freedoms. Taking the discussion forward towards the writings of Rose and the concept of ‘biological citizenship’ they infer it as the way through which citizenship is formed through considering the prominent characteristics of human beings. This then brings into the factors like who is a proper citizen and who are non-citizens. The idea of Denizens that derived from ancient Rome where the foreigners who resided in the Rome were not given all rights and their citizenship not limited. A Denizen is someone who has limited range of rights than the actual citizen, the modern Nation-States system has risen a similar rise into a new form of precariousness into the lives of irregular migrants that can be named as Neo-Denizens and they are victims of state violence and have been portrayed as other and the enemy by the sovereign.

Biopolitical Border Security in Europe

The idea of border control before the Schengen agreement was more dependent on the prevention of movement and the changes in this now is focused on indispensable need for capitalism to thrive is on mobility and to govern the then citizens on a never-ending space i.e, European Union. In Foucaultian notions the emerging ideas of these have newer challenges rather than controlling their movement from one place to the other there is cancellation of circulation is ruled out. The biopolitical border is not to limit the territory but to instead govern the de-territorialized. These newer borders function on freedom but it is not without conditions, these are governed by security practices and conditional movements to regulate citizens.

The biopolitical security mechanisms need to get knowledge of the other life in order to properly secure it, in this case it is the irregular migrants. The knowledge of these lives areunknown then it is considered to be danger. The biopolitical idea of security is through the knowledge of the known and therefore subjects unknown or outside this perceived knowledge are considered through profiling of the population. The European idea on biopolitical security tends to intensify the urge to better this knowledge in order to therefore maximize security through attempts of improving the identification of these irregular migrants. The notion of biopolitics is to increase and optimize life through recent biopolitical governance. These notions can be applied in the context of the European Union where there is significant increase of knowledge towards these irregular migrants in order to not only save them but also empower them.

Due to the development of these ideas there is an emergence of humanitarian borders as written by William Walters.  Foucault idea and the biopolitical borders and migrant management policies creates hierarchies in lives between those of irregular migrants and others who are regular migrants. There are although debates where Foucault’s claim if the idea of biopolitics is to further and optimize life then why does the sovereign or the political power kill? Then he notes that there a notable shift in discourse with the rise of the ‘racist state’, where he claims and points out ‘what must live and what must die’. This doesn’t mean that the death to inferior race ensures one’s safety but the death of that race makes one more healthier and purer and this idea of racist biopolitics was furthers by Hitler as written by Foucault. This analysis is furthered by Fassin who understands the idea of life worthy and unworthy.

This racist biopolitical notions is now furthered by the deaths of lives in the Mediterranean due to European Union’s rejection.  The Foucaultian biopolitics has its inherent paradoxes like how can the same irregular migrant bodies be a threat to security but also the need of lives to be saved in the same? Esposito furthers this idea where he connects that and talks about immunization and gives the concept of autoimmunity where it seems that Europe like an autoimmune condition starts ‘killing’ in order to protect but functions on the contrary.

Future of Schengen System

The series of debates on the Schengen have emerged especially looking at the refugee crisis, terrorist attacks and Brexit and there are states that have acted on their own to create other internal border the inflicts on the idea of free movement in the European Union. The various crises contributed to raising of internal borders even amongst the states that did not have any border restrictions like Sweden and Denmark. Schengen system have although come into light due to these crises by the European Council of Foreign Relations shows that almost 22 out of the 28 countries in the EU have shown promising commitments towards it. The idea for these promising commitments is due to the economic benefits for the states. Despite of terrorist attacks the notion of borderless zone is strong as states believe that the way to tackling these issues are through a combined effort and as European Union.

All’s not well is paradise as having economic benefits there seems to have consistent increase in checks and rise in internal borders. Austria has introduced checks on all of its borders, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden are other states that have introduced some kind of border checks on either side of their border. Emerging from the debates of Biopolitics and the otherization and there has been increase in fear of these irregular migrants as these reflect in the opinions of public as pew research shows that about 82% of the population in Lithuania believes that irregular migrants bring crimes and disturbs the public order, these show 60% in Estonia and 54% in Germany.

As the biopolitics of racist states tend to increase and has been reflected in the rise of extreme political ideologs getting into power the near future although seems fine but newer threats like the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors are contributing to a situation that may seem likely changes in the Schengen systems. As Esposito argues that through biopolitics the states turn into immunization and due to these immunization the conditions of autoimmunity becomes real and this condition reflects in the borders and migration policies of Europe where the right to kill and give a death by the sovereign is seen in Europe’s uncertain balance of National security and human security and this imbalance is resulting in costing lives and moving into a phase where humanitarian security needs to largely debated, emphasized and ruled upon. There have been possibilities like Mini Schengens, Small Schengens or remaining with the status quo that has been debated by the academia.

Source: moderndiplomacy.eu

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