Security, Identity, Loyalty
Security, Identity, Loyalty
This chapter explores the relationship between security, identity and loyalty. Focusing on the formative texts and practices underpinning the rise of the national security state in America, while alluding to more recent developments, the chapter argues that the fabrication of national security goes hand in hand with the fabrication of national identity, and vice versa. Extending well beyond the question of patriotism as a security trope, this ‘identity’ permeates everyday life, and helps construct political loyalty – not just to the state, but to security per se. Loyalty is treated as a key political technology for simultaneously gauging identity and reaffirming security, thereby revealing the security-identity-loyalty complex.
Keywords: Loyalty, identity, loyalty test, patriotism
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