The Coalescent State: Assemblages of Surveillance and Public Policy

Abstract

Traditional public policy models are not fully capable of analysing the multiplicities of public policy, particularly when dealing with the rhizomatic qualities of surveillance and protest. Instead, public policy and its effects should be considered an emergent and intensive property of the assemblages that ebb and flow around policy issues. This thesis takes a programmatic approach to understanding discourse around protest as part of an attempt to operationalise assemblage based research at a large scale.