From Disciplinary to Security Action

Around the beginning of the 21^st century, certain mutations of capitalism and modes of neomanagement combined to replace the old "disciplinary society", with what we can call the law and order society. Initially combining mechanisms of disciplinary power and a sophisticated biopolitics, the law and order society, has begun to adapt mechanisms of control (Deleuze), as well as elements of the old sovereign power and the state of permanent exception (Agamben) to face threats to its security. The methods of law and order operate in an ambiguous manner, oscillating between protection and repression. A perfect example of this oscillation can be seen in the measures used to control migratory fluxes, notably the detention centres, which are — I will argue — to contemporary society, what the prison was to Foucault’s disciplinary society.