The neoliberal/neurotic citizen and security as discourse

Abstract

Through the combination of discourse analysis and governmentality and an appeal to contemporary understandings of citizenship, this article examines the deeper processes of subjective replication and of discursive incitement that enable the extension, intensification and normalisation of security. It looks at how elites, affective structures and governmental standards combine to define the parameters of security and citizenship. By insisting on the contingent nature of both neoliberal rationality and neurosis, the article also points to the spaces of resistance that open up in the enactments of citizenship and security.