ABSTRACT
Since the attacks of 9/11 there has been a growing concern with security within academia and policy alike. The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the numerous attacks and bombings attributed to al-Qaeda or one of its ‘off-shoot networks’ have redefined the boundaries of post-cold war foreign policy. This foreign policy agenda has also had a subsequent impact on the domestic politics of numerous states. Social scientists have been trying since the end of the cold war to re-conceptualize the connections between the ‘here’ and ‘there’. Globalization is a central issue in numerous studies offering new insights on the functioning of world politics, the advent of a world civil society, on the flows of migration and communication and their subsequent new identifications and identity building patterns. All these studies are testimony to what Waldinger and Fitzgerald describe as ‘the view that nation-states and society normally converge has waned’ (2004: 1177). The growing disconnection between ‘society’ and the ‘Westphalian nation-state’ has also an impact on the configuration of politics. Thus, a sharp division between domestic politics and international relations becomes less and less viable with the growing influence of transnational actors, ‘human rights-regimes’ (Soysal, 1994) responsible for the dislocation of politics, citizenship and rights and the ongoing processes of migration, economic globalization and information networks. 1
