In Search Of Europes Borders

Borders define territories within which identities and order are described and delineated. The triptych of indentities, borders and orders is central to understanding the nature of sovereignty and the relations between countries. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the European Union. The changing definition and placement of the border is one of the most striking features of the recent transformations of the Union. The definition of what a border is and where it is for persons has moved out of the territory of national sovereignty and has become the preserve in law of the European Community. The enlargement of the European Union towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has created new challenges for the concept of borders in the EU. This volume examines the extent of the Community power and the legal meaning of the EU's borders, as well as the ways to control (or not) the movement of persons across borders. It considers the legal texts - EC law on visas, the Regulations on visas, the meaning of borders for persons in Community Law, the Schengen acquis and its incorporation into the EC Treaty (and where appropriate the TEU); national practice and its transformation with the insertion of the private sector's responsibility for the control of borders and judicial control. The point of departure is the perspective of the individual who is seeking to cross these borders.

European borders that aim to control migration and mobility increasingly rely on technology to distinguish between citizens and aliens. This book explores new tensions in Europe between states and citizens, and between politics, technology and human rights.

In recent years the borders of Europe have been perceived as being besieged by a staggering refugee and migration crisis. The contributors to The Borders of "Europe" see this crisis less as an incursion into Europe by external conflicts than as the result of migrants exercising their freedom of movement. Addressing the new technologies and technical forms European states use to curb, control, and constrain what contributors to the volume call the autonomy of migration, this book shows how the continent's amorphous borders present a premier site for the enactment and disputation of the very idea of Europe. They also outline how from Istanbul to London, Sweden to Mali, and Tunisia to Latvia, migrants are finding ways to subvert visa policies and asylum procedures while negotiating increasingly militarized and surveilled borders. Situating the migration crisis within a global frame and attending to migrant and refugee supporters as well as those who stoke nativist fears, this timely volume demonstrates how the enforcement of Europe’s borders is an important element of the worldwide regulation of human mobility. Contributors. Ruben Andersson, Nicholas De Genova, Dace Dzenovska, Evelina Gambino, Glenda Garelli, Charles Heller, Clara Lecadet, Souad Osseiran, Lorenzo Pezzani, Fiorenza Picozza, Stephan Scheel, Maurice Stierl, Laia Soto Bermant, Martina Tazzioli

This edited volume analyzes recent key developments in EU border management. In light of the refugee crises in the Mediterranean and the responses on the part of EU member states, this volume presents an in-depth reflection on European border practices and their political, social and economic consequences. Approaching borders as concepts in flux, the authors identify three main trends: the rise of security technologies such as the EUROSUR system, the continued externalization of EU security governance such as border mission training in third states, and the unfolding dynamics of accountability. The contributions show that internal security cooperation in Europe is far from consolidated, since both political oversight mechanisms and the definition of borders remain in flux. This edited volume makes a timely and interdisciplinary contribution to the ongoing academic and political debate on the future of open borders and legitimate security governance in Europe. It offers a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of international security and migration studies, as well as for practitioners dealing with border management mechanisms.

This book examines the management of migratory flows in the Mediterranean within an international security perspective. The intense migratory flows registered during the year 2015 and the tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea have tested the mechanisms of the Union’s immigration and asylum policies and its ability to respond to humanitarian crises. Moreover, these flows of varying intensities and geographies represent a threat to the internal security of the EU and its member states. By using Spain and Italy as case studies, the author theorizes that the EU, given its inability to adopt and implement a common policy to effectively manage migratory flows on its Southern border, uses a deterrence strategy based on minimum common denominators.

Changing Borders in Europe focuses on the territorial dimension of the European Union. It examines the transformation of state sovereignty within the EU, the emergence of varied self-determination claims, and the existence of a tailor-made architecture of functional borders, established by multiple agreements. This book helps to understand how self-determination pressures within the EU are creating growing concerns about member states’ identity, redefining multi-level government in the European space. It addresses several questions regarding two transformative processes – blurring of EU borders and state sovereignty shifts - and their interrelations from different disciplinary perspectives such as political science, law, political economy and sociology. In addition, it explores how the variable geographies of European borders may affect the issue of national self-determination in Europe, opening spaces for potential accommodations that could be compatible with existing states and legal frameworks. This book will be of key interest for scholars, students and practitioners of EU politics, public administration, political theory, federalism and more broadly of European studies, international law, ethnic studies, political economy and the wider social sciences.

Focussing European borders: The book provides insight into a variety of changes in the nature of borders in Europe and its neighborhood from various disciplinary perspectives. Special attention is paid to the history and contemporary dynamics at Polish and German borders. Of particular interest are the creation of Euroregions, mutual perceptions of Poles and Germans at the border, EU Regional Policy, media debates on the extension of the Schengen area. Analysis of cross-border mobility between Abkhazia and Georgia or the impact of Israel's »Security Fence« to Palestine on society complement the focus on Europe with a wider view.

Contributors to this volume address such topics as how Europeans now see themselves in relation to national identity, whether they identify themselves as citizens of a particular country or as members of a larger socio-political entity, how both natives and immigrants experience national and transnational identity at the local level, and the impact of globalization on national culture and the idea of the nation-state.

“Remarkable: a book about borders that makes the reader feel sumptuously free.” —Peter Pomerantsev In this extraordinary work of narrative reportage, Kapka Kassabova returns to Bulgaria, from where she emigrated as a girl twenty-five years previously, to explore the border it shares with Turkey and Greece. When she was a child, the border zone was rumored to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall, and it swarmed with soldiers and spies. On holidays in the “Red Riviera” on the Black Sea, she remembers playing on the beach only miles from a bristling electrified fence whose barbs pointed inward toward the enemy: the citizens of the totalitarian regime. Kassabova discovers a place that has been shaped by successive forces of history: the Soviet and Ottoman empires, and, older still, myth and legend. Her exquisite portraits of fire walkers, smugglers, treasure hunters, botanists, and border guards populate the book. There are also the ragged men and women who have walked across Turkey from Syria and Iraq. But there seem to be nonhuman forces at work here too: This densely forested landscape is rich with curative springs and Thracian tombs, and the tug of the ancient world, of circular time and animism, is never far off. Border is a scintillating, immersive travel narrative that is also a shadow history of the Cold War, a sideways look at the migration crisis troubling Europe, and a deep, witchy descent into interior and exterior geographies.

The cultural borders of Europe are today more visible than ever, and with them comes a sense of uncertainty with respect to liberal democratic traditions: whether treated as abstractions or concrete realities, cultural divisions challenge concepts of legitimacy and political representation as well as the legal bases for citizenship. Thus, an understanding of such borders and their consequences is of utmost importance for promoting the evolution of democracy. Cultural Borders of Europe provides a wide-ranging exploration of these lines of demarcation in a variety of regions and historical eras, providing essential insights into the state of European intercultural relations today.