Walled States, Waning Sovereignty by Wendy Brown - Book Report/Review Example

? Walled s, Waning Sovereignty by Wendy Brown (Book Review) Walled s, Waning Sovereignty by Wendy Brown (Book Review) Ward, Silberman and Till (2012) note that the world has been experiencing a strange and unprecedented increase in wall building since the fall of German’s Berlin Wall. This increase is not merely a resurgence in the making of physical walls, like the US-Mexico border wall, India-Saudi Arabia border wall or the recent Israeli-Palestine West Bank barriers; it is also an increasing desire for enclosure, as if countries could hide themselves safely behind walls. Wendy Brown in her recent novel Walled State, Waning Sovereignty brings out the ironic features of contemporary wall building. Wendy accounts for this theoretical phenomenon by delivering an original and open-ended speculative objective of building barriers, both at the borders between states and within sovereign states. This book incites a serious reflection on what has become a commonplace practice in the modern world. The book also does not establish a political or ethical position on the matter. In the book, Brown brings out the idea that theological is both the origin of ongoing complement of political sovereignty, and goes a head to think about walls, which in this case is a “material symbol of boarders between sovereign states, in the context of post-Westphalian geopolitics” (39). Brown suggests that contemporary acts of walling can be viewed as symptoms of theological anxiety brought about by several forces that attack and damage sovereign boundaries (Brown, 2010). She notes that as the sovereignty of the state gets eroded by global capital, walls are built as prophylaxes against disease, mobile labor, terror and against other forces that threaten to undermine the sovereignty of the state. The writing style used by Brown is quite clear and straightforward as she provides a rigorous conversation with both classical and contemporary political theorists. The theorists that are weaved by the book include Rousseau, Schmitt, Hobbes and Agamben among others, with sources like US-Mexico border watchdog group, Senator John McCain and The Menutemen (Brown, 2010). Her attentive engagement through out the conservation with all this sources provided a compelling cased for her critical analysis of the symptomatic diminishing of sovereignty because of globalization. The book begins with an account of ‘tour’ of contemporary walls where Brown pledges to explore the ways in which the world’s new walls share deep-seated similarities. Nevertheless, the majority of the novel is based solely on the US-Mexico border and the recent Israeli-Palestinian West Bank Wall. She, however, fails to consider other cases of wall building that are in progress today (Brown, 2010). In the novel, Brown points out the tension that is growing in the “post-Westphalian” world between fusion, opening and removal on one hand with partition, barricading, and re-inscription on the other. Brown argues that these tensions can be found with a lot of clarity in the new walls that have been put up since the collapse of the world’s renowned Berlin wall and the imaginary triumph of democracy denoted by that incident. In the some way globalization requires free movement of goods, people, and capital; the supposed contemporary walls are erected to block people, and terrorists. Brown argues that these walls signifies and a reaction to the “decline and erosion of sovereign states in the global world” (19). According to the Brown’s critical analysis regarding the contemporary revival of wall building, she points out that despite this attempt to build barriers between states; the walls do not actually accomplish the purpose for which they are built. She notes that these walls can neither abating trans-border migration nor stop smuggling or crimes; instead, they just spread their effects (Brown, 2010). Brown also points out that walls does nothing meaningful about security since they cannot resist enemy soldiers as they are powerless during an intense-diffuse threats like biological weapons and suicide bombers. Walls do not perform any duty, but they are increasingly being built. However, as Brown points out, there is more irony to their popularity. Walls are built on the state borders, but the forces they are meant to keep at bay are transnational, decentered and widespread (Brown, 2010). In spite of this, perception of putting up new barriers around states is based on dominant ideology of globalization, all of which imagines a world without boundaries, be it in the name of global governance, free markets, humanitarian interventionism or universal democracy. Brown alludes that, within the fantasy landscape of independence and cooperation, walls are erected as an anachronism. The question that may be asked now is if these walls are neither useful nor fashionable, then why are they built, and where does this desire comes from? The solution provided by Brown is elegant, deeply counter-intuitive and well reasoned. Her reasoning is also not persuasive in nature since they are based on assumptions, which has not been entirely substantiated. One of the reasons she gives is that we are living in the era of “waning sovereignty,” where power is receding away from sovereign states and accumulating to various trans-national entities such as religious violence and global capital (Brown, 2010). She argues that globalization is taking away states of their independency, making them less capable of governing and influencing the lives of their citizens. Brown notes that walls are used as a response to this diminishment (Brown, 2010). In this case, walls are erected as a cover-up, as a means of insisting on stability and dominance of the nation even as it diminishes and becomes irrelevant in the face of global circulation of money, influence and labor. Walls are also stage set productions of stable statehood, independency and self-sufficiency, put up to restore individual mastery and sense of balance among citizens. Brown goes further to argue that walls are also erected to shore up the psychic space of the country, but like boats, they point to a basic susceptibility. Brown also argues that walls act as a symbol of protection, and project the imago of God-like sovereignty as well as performing the work of political legitimization of nations and consolation for the state’s subjects (Brown, 2010). To prove this claim, Brown shifts her focus from state sovereignty to the psychology of its subjects. She then lays out four different psychological fantasies that enable the rhetoric and wall-building to be effective projects given their proven inefficiency to secure borders: Fantasy of the state as the Arendtian that provides shelter to subjects, fear of dangerous aliens, fear of impermeable states, and the fantasy that those who are walled are good and innocent. Brown points out that, walls may not work at “keeping people at bay, but are effective in defining and giving identity to citizens it fences” (26). Brown also view walls as a form of symbolic compensation, which is helpful in illuminating the hidden psychic sources behind the wish for wall-building, the hidden wishes walls fulfills and the deep fears it alleviates. However, this seems to have some limitation as Brown fails to differentiate the different types of walls. This is because, throughout his arguments, she relies much on the US border fence. However, much she concedes that it is not similar to the West Bank security fence (‘neocolonialism’ for ‘globalization’); it is not easy to conceptualize that her analysis would extend to walls around non-liberal regimes such as those of North Korea and China, South Africa-Zimbabwe wall and the India-Saudi Arabia boarder fence among others (Brown, 2010). This argument also refrain her from putting into consideration the fact that wall building is not entirely the domain of states. Brown also fails to give space to the darker impulse behind the building of these walls, especially those who have to do with the feelings of repulsion, hatred and superiority. This group does not form part of the assumption of the book-that sovereignty is indeed waning the West, ever critically scrutinized. While religious terrorism and financial globalization certainly creates anxiety, it is indeed not very clear that they actually erode the power of states. This is due based on the view of the Americas past experience which points to the opposite according to Brown (2010). Brown’s thesis is also arguably US-centric in nature that threatens sovereignty of states openly. For instance, her manifestation of nationalist desire in explicitly religious terms does not fit well, the situation of contemporary European nationalism. It might be more valuable to hold to a more general understanding of the theological basis of political independency. That is, one, which does not single out that, it, must be entirely religious through which, the religious desire to protect and defend the ailing states. That “the notion of state’s sovereignty continues to frame and speed up events (such as the border works of walling), is testament ultimately because it continues to generate so successfully the trick of substantiation” (56). Indexing, resembling and contributing to production and reproduction of race in many different ways, a critical task as one of accounting for stolid endurance of the national idea. This aspect is clearly brought out in this book as she yokes political philosophy, sociology, psychology and popular culture into theoretical realm. Brown insinuates that the type of sovereignty of states has past because of globalization and other changes taking place across the world. Nevertheless, the passing does not imply that there are other effective alternative form for the production of subjects and the organization of contemporary models of belonging and identity. He says, ‘we are in a global interregnum, a time after the era of state sovereignty, but before the articulation or instantiation of an alternative global order’ (Brown, 2010). Brown argues that a much as people are still held up in the modernist fantasy of the sovereignty of the states even it is collapses and fades people continue to make a heavy psychosocial investment in cement and razor wire. Brown’s thesis is speculative in nature based on the fact that it focuses on the contemporary desire for walling coupled with a brief exploration of Anna Freud’s and Sigmund Freud’s theories of defense, mixed with her thorough investigation of sovereignty which is declining all over the world. This aspect indeed makes her piece of work original. This is so because the aspects she brought out such as the Post-Westphalianism are not new to people any more. Therefore, Brown’s piece of work can be credited for her book that focuses on walling, which is a peculiar expression of “post-Westphalianism.” In fact, Brown supplements this with psychoanalytic consideration on desire and defense. What is not pleasing on this last section of her psychoanalytic theory is the fact that it is not thoroughly addressed. It is now a matter of wait and sees on how she will address this part in her future work. References Brown, W. (2010). Walled states, waning sovereignty. New York, NY: Zone Books. Read More