Deterritorialized and unfinished “integration nations”?

Abstract

In my contribution to this symposium, I engage with Adrian Favell’s “integration nation” in two ways: I maintain that, in addition to what Favell suggests, the integration nation recently became deterritorialized by reaching out beyond its national borders, designing some people as “immigrants” and subjecting them to “integration policies” before they even leave their country. Governmentality of integration is therefore constitutive of and for border regimes. Furthermore, I propose to distinguish different configurations of the constitution and power of the integration nation in the North Atlantic West. Bringing in Switzerland permits additional insights into the power mechanisms of the integration nation: the linear conception of the new political demography remains in this case quasi “unfinished” as it is almost impossible to become a fully recognized member through citizenship. Yet, this does not mean that the case does not speak to the integration nation issue.