Fiscal extraction by sovereignty: Calculative bordering and differential entanglement in the Eurozone crisis

The article analyses the relationship between sovereignty and capitalist extraction using assemblage theory. It discusses dialectical variants of assemblage theory as tools to think about the entangled relations that make economic actors. The article proposes two concepts, calculative bordering and differential entanglement, to make sense of processes that responsibilised the Greek government for the 2010s Eurozone crisis and invoked its sovereignty as a tool for extraction value for financial markets. The article contributes to anthropological theorisations of sovereignty by showing how, as a political concept, sovereignty can serve to responsibilize governments to secure accumulation and ensure capitalist extraction. The article thus aims for a refined understanding of the changing relation between extraction and sovereignty and processes of fiscal responsibilization as a performance of sovereignty.