The Emergence of Partisans and Terrorists

Abstract

The changing status and capacity of enemies of the state play an important role in the evolution of the securitization of the state. Examining how enemies of the state mold state action, this article uses Foucault's concern with governmentality and Schmitt's theory of the partisan to describe how and where agencies have begun to manage closed and open spaces. From this administrative angle, the interplay between these two ideas sheds light on how administrators devise disciplinary and security-based measures. This article more fully describes the dynamic of how administrators have countered active threats by constructing closed spaces designed to discipline and operating in open spaces designed to exclude. The execution and interaction of extending mechanisms of control and calculation to closed and open spaces not only provide enhanced protection but also threaten the fruition of constitutional and democratic values in the twenty-first century.