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We are specifically interested in the consequences of these conventions for political life, which we think is being reconfigured in novel ways. Moreover, with the development of the Internet of things—our phones, watches, dishwashers, fridges, cars, and many other devices being always already connected to the Internet—we not only do things with words but also do words with things. ) These connected devices generate enormous volumes of data about our movements, locations, activities, interests, encounters, and private and public relationships through which we become data subjects.

Alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-78348-057-9 (electronic) 1. Internet in public administration. 2. Internet—Political aspects. I. Title. 48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Acknowledgements We are grateful to Marianne Franklin, Matthew Fuller, and Adrian Mackenzie, who read an earlier version of the manuscript and provided brilliantly incisive comments that can only be made by those who truly understand the help needed during the last stages of writing a book. We are also thankful for the insightful comments of four anonymous reviewers.

If indeed we understand this dynamic of taking up positions as subjectivation, we then identify three forces through which citizen subjects come into being: legality, performativity, and imaginary. These are neither sequential nor parallel but simultaneous and intertwined forces of subjectivation. We will explain why we call these ‘forces’ in more detail later, in chapter 3. For now, let us briefly describe each in turn. The legality of citizenship inscribes the figure of the citizen as that person with the right to claim rights.