Abstract: This paper analyzes opaque, shifting and reversible relations of profit and positionality between private and public actors in the border security sector, including for the European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex). Focusing on various stakeholders, public institutional subsidizing, conglomerate and subsidiary strategies, guarantees from national banks or venture capital influences this sector. As ministries and state agencies facilitate tenders, contracts and research and development (R&D) on control technologies through discursive framings about military threats and urgent gaps, industrial competitiveness, job creation, or European autonomy in geopolitics. One future venue to examine is how military or dual use export licences to externalised infrastructures of migration control facilitate international crimes. The paper concludes with some observations on the political economy of border security and the military sector, and implications for human rights, transparency and accountability.

Lemberg-Pedersen earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Copenhagen. He is associate professor at the department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University, honorary associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick, and external affiliate with the Centre for the Study of International Affairs, Barcelona (CIDOB). He has been head of policy and documentation for Amnesty International Denmark, and also associate professor at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, University of Copenhagen.
His current research concerns the ethics and geopolitics of supply chains for advanced security technologies.

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