The marketization of ‘legitimate’ violence : inducing deportation through public-private cooperation?

Abstract

This chapter analyses empirical evidence on how private-public cooperation plays out in the implementation of immigration detention for the purpose of expulsion. I show how the state responds to constraints on its control capacity most notably the rule of law by delegating violence, even though the use of ‘legitimate’ violence lies at the core of sovereignty, and by ‘inducing deportations’. While private companies undertake the state’s coercive action and, with it, accept the responsibilities and blame that might result, state actors concentrate their efforts on induced deportations, in which they secure migrants’ agreement to leave by advising, persuading, and threatening.