States under racial neoliberalism mutate from welfare providers into prophylactic defenders against perceived threats.

Evidence

The state is in the process of being structurally transformed from a robust set of institutional apparatuses concerned at day’s end to advance the welfare of its citizens and allies, contradictions and all, into a structure of social prophylaxis. It is troubled as a consequence overwhelmingly with securing the most elevated private interests from the perceived contamination and threat of those deemed for various reasons not to belong, to have little or no standing, the welfare of whom is calculated to cost too much, economically or politically. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 472

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of the state as ‘social prophylaxis’ — a vivid framing of the state’s protective-defensive function against those deemed outsiders.
• XREF: Connects to Bauman’s ‘pastoral state’ concept invoked just before, and to the book’s broader argument about racialized exclusion. — connects to: Neoliberalism functions as a response to white status threat. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1764; Neoliberal states shifted from citizen wellbeing to policing and surveillance — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 203