The production of precariousness for the dissenting subject at the intersections of neoliberal and cultural nationalist practice

Rajnish Rai ()
Additional contact information
Rajnish Rai: Indian Institute of Management

DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, 2019, vol. 46, issue 2, No 4, 126 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this study, I examine how dissenting subjects become precarious in the context of national security labor. I argue that the intersection of neoliberal and cultural nationalist practices produces a state formation, which is not genuinely interested in building institutional capacities for strengthening national security. Instead, the neoliberal, cultural nationalist state is more interested in investing in organizational actors who can produce spectacles, which transform citizens into passive consumers of state propaganda. Dissenters who call for expansion of institutional capacities threaten the prevailing authority structures, as institutions can then become sites for democratic action. Using auto-ethnographic approach to analyze the letters that I wrote while working in a national security organization in India and its subsequent coverage in the media, I contend that the marginalization of the dissenter is used as a tactic by the state for normalizing the erosion of institutional capacities.

Keywords: Dissent; Auto-ethnography; National security labor; Hindu nationalism; Neoliberal India; Precariousness; Indian Police Service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40622-019-00214-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:decisn:v:46:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s40622-019-00214-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/40622

DOI: 10.1007/s40622-019-00214-9

Access Statistics for this article

DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is currently edited by Rajesh Babu

More articles in DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta from Springer, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().