The international politics of reporting: securing logistics and finance through morality and reputation

This article revisits David Garland’s ‘responsibilization strategy’ by examining how the banking and cross-border logistics sectors are co-opted into security governance through a ‘politics of reporting’. Based on fieldwork in Canada, we analyse how responsibilities for surveillance and control are constructed within these economic subfields. We argue that while moral duty plays a role, reputational stakes primarily drive these sectors’ participation in security arrangements, refracting state security demands into business logics centred on legitimacy and competitive advantage. Reputation emerges as a form of symbolic capital, integral to compliance and market positioning, yet unevenly distributed across these industries. Larger firms leverage reputational gains for competitive advantages, whereas smaller companies are often marginalised by the high costs of compliance, pushed into informal market practices. The study highlights how the integration of security and economic logics results in a co-evolution of capitalist market strategies and state security objectives, reshaping both fields in complex and dynamic ways.