Governing ‘ungoverned’ space: humanitarianism, citizenship, and the civilian sphere in the territorialising practices of the US national security complex

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe ‘war on terror’ has seen an increased overlap between military and humanitarian practices in US national security strategy. Guided by imaginative geographies of ‘ungoverned’ or ‘under-governed’ space, aid distribution and humanitarian assistance efforts are frequently coupled with stability efforts and counterinsurgency operations. This overlap has been buttressed by a growing collaboration between the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development – often termed the ‘3Ds’of defense, development and diplomacy – bringing a greater influence of the civilian sphere on US national security strategy. In this paper, I explore the influence of the civilian sphere on these military-humanitarian practices. Through an analysis of publications and policy documents from across the US national security complex, I argue that the civilian sphere is central to US efforts to territorialize ostensibly insecure, ‘ungoverned’ space so as to extend US global geopolitical influence and the US-led global neoliberal market. This involves both a more substantial role for civilian organisations in security efforts, adding legitimacy and civilian expertise to territorialising military-humanitarian practices, and a growing focus on the harnessing of the civilian sphere of targeted populations on-the-ground through a greater emphasis on citizenship, and its related ideas of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, in security policy. Not only does this focus on citizenship couch US intervention in a moral discourse, it also indicates how ‘ungoverned’ space is to be rendered ‘governed’ through the encouragement of a technology of citizenship and a subjectivity conducive to the expansion of the neoliberal market.