Category: Mobility Restrictions

• The "Passport" Totalitarianism

  This theory held that wartime passport controls were not temporary emergency measures but the beginning of a permanent regime in which states would own, mark, and track their populations. It developed during World War I, when governments that had previously tolerated freer movement imposed tighter identity and border controls in the name of security. In conspiratorial and libertarian language, the passport was not just a travel paper but a token of political possession.