How Much Do National Borders Matter?

How Much Do National Borders Matter?

Author: John F. Helliwell

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2000-06-27

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780815791485

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It is widely believed that globalization has proceeded to the point where international economic linkages are as strong as those within nations. Struck by research suggesting that this perception is dramatically mistaken, John Helliwell spent three years assessing the evidence. The results are reported in this book, the latest in Brookings' Integrating National Economies series. It provides the most systematic measurements yet available of the relative importance of global and national economic ties. The original finding, based on a gravity model of trade flows, was that 1988 trade linkages between Canadian provinces were twenty times as dense as those between Canadian provinces and U.S. states of similar size and distance. A much longer and more detailed body of data is used to expand and explain these findings. Data for trade within and among OECD and some developing countries are used to show that the Canadian-U.S. results are applicable to other countries. Helliwell then surveys and extends the evidence relating to price linkages, capital mobility, migration, and knowledge spillovers, finding in all cases very large border effects. The evidence offers a challenge to economists, policymakers, and citizens to explain why national economies have so much staying power, and to consider whether this is a good or bad thing. Helliwell argues that since large and small industrial economies have similar levels of income, there are likely to be diminishing returns from increases in globalization beyond levels sufficient to permit the ready exploitation of comparative advantages in trade, and relatively easy access to knowledge developed elsewhere.


Borders: A Very Short Introduction

Borders: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Alexander C. Diener

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-08-06

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 0199912653

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Compelling and accessible, this Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our lives. Highlighting the historical development and continued relevance of borders, Alexander Diener and Joshua Hagen offer a powerful counterpoint to the idea of an imminent borderless world, underscoring the impact borders have on a range of issues, such as economic development, inter- and intra-state conflict, global terrorism, migration, nationalism, international law, environmental sustainability, and natural resource management. Diener and Hagen demonstrate how and why borders have been, are currently, and will undoubtedly remain hot topics across the social sciences and in the global headlines for years to come. This compact volume will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students, including geographers, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, international relations and law experts, as well as lay readers interested in understanding current events.


Immigration and the Constraints of Justice

Immigration and the Constraints of Justice

Author: Ryan Pevnick

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-02-24

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1139496611

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This book explores the constraints which justice imposes on immigration policy. Like liberal nationalists, Ryan Pevnick argues that citizens have special claims to the institutions of their states. However, the source of these special claims is located in the citizenry's ownership of state institutions rather than in a shared national identity. Citizens contribute to the construction and maintenance of institutions (by paying taxes and obeying the law), and as a result they have special claims to these institutions and a limited right to exclude outsiders. Pevnick shows that the resulting view justifies a set of policies - including support for certain types of guest worker programs - which is distinct from those supported by either liberal nationalists or advocates of open borders. His book provides a framework for considering a number of connected topics including issues related to self-determination, the scope of distributive justice and the significance of shared national identity.


Theory of the Border

Theory of the Border

Author: Thomas Nail

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-08-02

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0190618663

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Despite -- and perhaps because of -- increasing global mobility, there are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life. Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.


Open Borders

Open Borders

Author: Reece Jones

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0820354279

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Border control continues to be a highly contested and politically charged subject around the world. This collection of essays challenges reactionary nationalism by making the positive case for the benefits of free movement for countries on both ends of the exchange. Open Borders counters the knee-jerk reaction to build walls and close borders by arguing that there is not a moral, legal, philosophical, or economic case for limiting the movement of human beings at borders. The volume brings together essays by theorists in anthropology, geography, international relations, and other fields who argue for open borders with writings by activists who are working to make safe passage a reality on the ground. It puts forward a clear, concise, and convincing case for a world without movement restrictions at borders. The essays in the first part of the volume make a theoretical case for free movement by analyzing philosophical, legal, and moral arguments for opening borders. In doing so, they articulate a sustained critique of the dominant idea that states should favor the rights of their own citizens over the rights of all human beings. The second part sketches out the current situation in the European Union, in states that have erected border walls, in states that have adopted a policy of inclusion such as Germany and Uganda, and elsewhere in the world to demonstrate the consequences of the current regime of movement restrictions at borders. The third part creates a dialogue between theorists and activists, examining the work of Calais Migrant Solidarity, No Borders Morocco, activists in sanctuary cities, and others who contest border restrictions on the ground.


Unjust Borders

Unjust Borders

Author: Javier S. Hidalgo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-11-07

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1351383272

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States restrict immigration on a massive scale. Governments fortify their borders with walls and fences, authorize border patrols, imprison migrants in detention centers, and deport large numbers of foreigners. Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration argues that immigration restrictions are systematically unjust and examines how individual actors should respond to this injustice. Javier Hidalgo maintains that individuals can rightfully resist immigration restrictions and often have strong moral reasons to subvert these laws. This book makes the case that unauthorized migrants can permissibly evade, deceive, and use defensive force against immigration agents, that smugglers can aid migrants in crossing borders, and that citizens should disobey laws that compel them to harm immigrants. Unjust Borders is a meditation on how individuals should act in the midst of pervasive injustice.


Why Borders Matter

Why Borders Matter

Author: Frank Furedi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-13

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000080161

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Western society has become estranged from the borders and social boundaries that have for centuries given meaning to human experience. This book argues that the controversy surrounding mass migration and physical borders runs in parallel and is closely connected to the debates surrounding the symbolic boundaries people need to guide on the issues of everyday life. Numerous commentators claim that borders have become irrelevant in the age of mass migration and globalisation. Some go so far as to argue for ‘No Borders’. And it is not merely the boundaries that divide nations that are under attack! The traditional boundaries that separate adults from children, or men from women, or humans from animals, or citizens and non-citizens, or the private from the public sphere are often condemned as arbitrary, unnatural, and even unjust. Paradoxically, the attempt to alter or abolish conventional boundaries coexists with the imperative of constructing new ones. No-Border campaigners call for safe spaces. Opponents of cultural appropriation demand the policing of language and advocates of identity politics are busy building boundaries to keep out would-be encroachers on their identity. Furedi argues that the key driver of the confusion surrounding borders and boundaries is the difficulty that society has in endowing experience with meaning. The most striking symptom of this trend is the cultural devaluation of the act of judgment, which has led to a loss of clarity about the moral boundaries in everyday life. The infantilisation of adults that runs in tandem with the adultification of children offers a striking example of the consequence of non-judgmentalism. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in cultural sociology, sociology of knowledge, philosophy, political theory, and cultural studies.


Border Matters

Border Matters

Author: José David Saldívar

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0520918363

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Border Matters locates the study of Chicano culture in a broad social context. José Saldívar examines issues of representation and expression in a diverse, exciting assortment of texts—corridos, novels, poems, short stories, punk and hip-hop music, ethnography, paintings, performance, art, and essays. Saldívar provides a sophisticated model for a new kind of U.S. cultural studies, one that challenges the homogeneity of U.S. nationalism and popular culture by foregrounding the contemporary experiences and historical circumstances facing Chicanos and Chicanas. This intellectually adventurous, politically engaged study applies borderlands and diaspora theory to Chicano cultural practices in a way that permanently changes our understanding of both the Chicano experience and the meaning of cultural theory. Defying national (and nationalistic) paradigms of culture, Saldívar argues that the culture of the borderlands is trans-national, constituting a social space in which new relations, hybrid cultures, and multi-voiced aesthetics are negotiated. Saldívar's critical readings treat culture as a social force and reveal the presence of social contexts within cultural texts. Border Matters maps out a new terrain for the study of culture, reshaping the way we understand migration, national identity, and intellectual inquiry itself.


The Politics of Borders

The Politics of Borders

Author: Matthew Longo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1107171784

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Borders are changing in response to terrorism and immigration. This book shows why this matters, especially for sovereignty, individual liberty, and citizenship.