The State Effect: Theorizing Immigration Politics in Arizona

​Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2017. “The State Effect: Theorizing Immigration Politics in Arizona.” Social Problems 64(2): 239-255.

Often invoked as either all-powerful or ineffectual, the state takes on different meanings in border activism. This article complicates Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “state effect” by showing how pro-immigrant groups resisted a strong-state effect while anti-immigrant organizations mobilized around a weak-state effect, revealing how divergent perceptions of state power drive political engagement.

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