Who speaks for the European border security industry? A network analysis

Abstract:

This article contributes to the literature on the European border security industry with a network analysis of a new bipartite data set. The network is composed of speakers and their speech topics at a European border security conference taking place from 2008 to 2015. Speakers are linked to conferences by year of attendance and to speech topics to identify key actors and discourses using measures of centrality. A multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MR-QAP) is used to explain the continuity of conference speech topics.

The centrality analysis reveals a number of “hubs” and the discourse analysis reveals a consistent focus on social control and surveillance over human rights. The MR-QAP regression suggests that shared discourses are driven by organisations which act as key speakers at many events, and whose discourses are prioritised over those of other actors. The article concludes with notes on the critical implications of the findings.