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The strange resilience of the UK e-Borders programme: Technology hype, failure and lock-in in border control.
- Source :
- Security Dialogue; Aug2023, Vol. 54 Issue 4, p395-413, 19p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- The UK government's e-Borders project presents an intriguing anomaly: despite repeated and acknowledged failings of the project over two decades, it has remained a core part of border strategy across successive administrations. This article seeks to explain the surprising resilience of this programme by developing the concept of political lock-in. We combine insights from critical security studies with science and technology studies concepts of 'tech hype' and lock-in. We apply these insights to trace how e-Borders was constructed as a compelling technological solution to pressing security issues. This created a form of political lock-in, whereby the project became impossible to abandon because of its political urgency, despite increasing awareness of its unfeasibility. With the project caught in a liminal state of non-completion, successive governments expanded the scope of the programme by attaching new security problems to it, thereby rendering it even more unviable. Our analysis thus throws up a paradox: rather than mobilizing resources to accomplish its tech vision, securitization created forms of lock-in and paralysis that made the programme more difficult to accomplish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- BORDER security
INTERNATIONAL security
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09670106
- Volume :
- 54
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Security Dialogue
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 169950274
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106231182833