Homeland security is rarely just a matter of the homeland; it involves the circulation and multiplication of policing practices across borders. Though the term "homeland security" is closely associated with the United States, Israel is credited with developing the first all-encompassing approach to domestic surveillance and territorial control. Today, it is a central node in the $200 billion per year homeland security industry. And in the wake of 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, India emerged as a major growth market. Known as "India's 9/11" or simply "26/11," the attacks sparked significant public pressure to adopt "modern" homeland security approaches. Since 2008, India has become not only the single largest buyer of Israeli conventional weapons, but also a range of other surveillance technology, police training, and security expertise.

Pairing insights from science and technology studies with those from decolonial and postcolonial theory, Fabricating Homeland Security traces 26/11's political and policy fallout, concentrating on the efforts of Israel's homeland security industry to advise and equip Indian city and state governments. Through a focus on the often unseen and overlooked political struggles at work in the making of homeland security, Rhys Machold illustrates how homeland security is a universalizing project that seeks to remake the world in its image, and tells the story of how claims to global authority are fabricated and put to work.

Rhys Machold is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow.