Description
Winner, 2023 Southwest Book Awards, Border Regional Library Association
In 2010 Arizona enacted Senate Bill 1070, the notorious "show-me-your-papers" law. At the time, it was widely portrayed as a draconian outlier; today, it is clear that events in Arizona foreshadowed the rise of Donald Trump and underscored the worldwide trend toward the securitization of migration-treating immigrants as a security threat. Offering a comprehensive account of the SB 1070 era in Arizona and its fallout, this book provides new perspective on why policy makers adopt hard-line views on immigration and how this trend can be turned back.
Tracing how the issue of unauthorized migration consumed Arizona state politics from 2003 to 2010, Mike Slaven analyzes how previously extreme arguments can gain momentum among politicians across the political spectrum. He presents an insider account based on illuminating interviews with political actors as well as historical research, weaving a compelling narrative of power struggles and political battles. Slaven details how politicians strategize about border politics in the context of competitive partisan conflicts and how securitization spreads across parties and factions. He examines right-wing figures who pushed an increasingly extreme agenda; the lukewarm center-right, which faced escalating far-right pressure; and the nervous center-left, which feared losing the center to border-security appeals-and he explains why the escalation of securitization broke down, yielding new political configurations. A comprehensive chronicle of a key episode in recent American history, this book also draws out lessons that Arizona's experience holds for immigration politics across the world.
About the Author
Mike Slaven is senior lecturer in international politics at the University of Lincoln. He was previously a speechwriter for the U.S. secretary of homeland security and the governor of Arizona.
Reviews
Mike Slaven has produced a sophisticated and exquisitely crafted explanation of why policy makers and others decide to frame a public problem in security terms and how such choices shift domestic balances of power. The book features a painstaking investigation of Arizona border politics, which sets it well above the best empirically grounded approaches to securitization studies. -- Thierry Balzacq, coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy
Mike Slaven provides a deeply researched and illuminating account of one of the most disturbing events in the recent history of nativist politics in the United States, which opened a new era of anti-immigrant policy making and political activism in states and cities across the country. His perspective is enriched by personal experience in the practical politics of immigration. -- Wayne A. Cornelius, University of California, San Diego
A timely analysis that broadens our comprehension of how the politics of security works in tandem with "normal politics." Slaven convincingly bridges these two bodies of literature that often remain distinct from each other and enables a creative and nuanced understanding of the relationships between populism, power, processes of securitization, and possibilities for desecuritization. -- Roxanne Doty, author of The Law Into Their Own Hands: Immigration and the Politics of Exceptionalism
Securing Borders, Securing Power is an outstanding book. It is at once a detailed insider's account of immigration policy in Arizona and a generalizable account of when securitization strategies succeed and when they fail. These strategies can deliver votes, but they are Faustian pacts that threaten not only immigrants but the Republic itself. -- Randall Hansen, author of War, Work, and Want: Global Migration from OPEC to Covid-19
Slaven eloquently chronicles the turmoil of populist politics around the character of America and the rhetorical use and abuse of the roles that the border and immigration play in it. -- Tony Payan, author of The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration and Homeland Security
This book offers a compelling narrative account of immigration politics in Arizona. Bringing the political conflicts around immigration to life, Slaven demonstrates how framing immigration as a security matter is like opening a Pandora's box, releasing demons that participants in the political arena (especially moderates) then struggle to control. -- Kimberly Morgan, author of Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policy in Western Europe and the United States
Awards
Winner of Southwest Book Awards, Border Regional Library Association 2023.
Book Information
ISBN 9780231203777
Author Mike Slaven
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
In 2010 Arizona enacted Senate Bill 1070, the notorious "show-me-your-papers" law. At the time, it was widely portrayed as a draconian outlier; today, it is clear that events in Arizona foreshadowed the rise of Donald Trump and underscored the worldwide trend toward the securitization of migration-treating immigrants as a security threat. Offering a comprehensive account of the SB 1070 era in Arizona and its fallout, this book provides new perspective on why policy makers adopt hard-line views on immigration and how this trend can be turned back.
Tracing how the issue of unauthorized migration consumed Arizona state politics from 2003 to 2010, Mike Slaven analyzes how previously extreme arguments can gain momentum among politicians across the political spectrum. He presents an insider account based on illuminating interviews with political actors as well as historical research, weaving a compelling narrative of power struggles and political battles. Slaven details how politicians strategize about border politics in the context of competitive partisan conflicts and how securitization spreads across parties and factions. He examines right-wing figures who pushed an increasingly extreme agenda; the lukewarm center-right, which faced escalating far-right pressure; and the nervous center-left, which feared losing the center to border-security appeals-and he explains why the escalation of securitization broke down, yielding new political configurations. A comprehensive chronicle of a key episode in recent American history, this book also draws out lessons that Arizona's experience holds for immigration politics across the world.
About the Author
Mike Slaven is senior lecturer in international politics at the University of Lincoln. He was previously a speechwriter for the U.S. secretary of homeland security and the governor of Arizona.
Reviews
Mike Slaven has produced a sophisticated and exquisitely crafted explanation of why policy makers and others decide to frame a public problem in security terms and how such choices shift domestic balances of power. The book features a painstaking investigation of Arizona border politics, which sets it well above the best empirically grounded approaches to securitization studies. -- Thierry Balzacq, coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy
Mike Slaven provides a deeply researched and illuminating account of one of the most disturbing events in the recent history of nativist politics in the United States, which opened a new era of anti-immigrant policy making and political activism in states and cities across the country. His perspective is enriched by personal experience in the practical politics of immigration. -- Wayne A. Cornelius, University of California, San Diego
A timely analysis that broadens our comprehension of how the politics of security works in tandem with "normal politics." Slaven convincingly bridges these two bodies of literature that often remain distinct from each other and enables a creative and nuanced understanding of the relationships between populism, power, processes of securitization, and possibilities for desecuritization. -- Roxanne Doty, author of The Law Into Their Own Hands: Immigration and the Politics of Exceptionalism
Securing Borders, Securing Power is an outstanding book. It is at once a detailed insider's account of immigration policy in Arizona and a generalizable account of when securitization strategies succeed and when they fail. These strategies can deliver votes, but they are Faustian pacts that threaten not only immigrants but the Republic itself. -- Randall Hansen, author of War, Work, and Want: Global Migration from OPEC to Covid-19
Slaven eloquently chronicles the turmoil of populist politics around the character of America and the rhetorical use and abuse of the roles that the border and immigration play in it. -- Tony Payan, author of The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration and Homeland Security
This book offers a compelling narrative account of immigration politics in Arizona. Bringing the political conflicts around immigration to life, Slaven demonstrates how framing immigration as a security matter is like opening a Pandora's box, releasing demons that participants in the political arena (especially moderates) then struggle to control. -- Kimberly Morgan, author of Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policy in Western Europe and the United States
Awards
Winner of Southwest Book Awards, Border Regional Library Association 2023.
Book Information
ISBN 9780231203777
Author Mike Slaven
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
