Projects of (In)Security and the (I)Legitimate State: How Is Social Integration Dependent on a Resignification of Security in Today's Modern State?

An interdisciplinary review of the concept of security as a complex problem helps us address the initial question of this presentation: What legitimizes a State? In this work, we argue that understanding the processes that inform or misinform the concept of security allows us to identify the processes that legitimize the State. We believe that an analysis of the dynamic between the key concepts of the State, security, and legitimacy contributes to the debate on the question of the modern state. For this purpose, we review the definitions of these concepts from their epistemological formation and historical development, thus helping to problematize the illegitimate state as it is exemplified in today's nation-states. First, we trace the epistemological formation of the concept of the State in the West, and in the second section, we examine how the formation of the concept of security justifies projects of (in)security that solely safeguard economic interests in both core and peripheral states. Finally, in the third section, we identify possibilities for change by examining the limits and contradictions of liberal democracies. With the help of Gramsci's concepts of hegemony/subjectivation and Habermas' concept of discursive rationality, we highlight the political processes that legitimize illegitimate States, showing that within the process of subjectivation there is potential to resolve certain aspects of today's crises.