This book offers an in-depth investigation into the digitisation processes of Europe’s border regime. It shows how sociotechnical imaginations of future borders drive forward the expansion of databases in the European governance of mobility. With a focus on the European Union Agency eu-LISA, one of the most significant and rapidly advancing actors in the digital border regime, the book serves as a gateway to understanding the key agents, visions, technologies and practices at work. Asking broader questions about exclusion, discrimination, violence and mobility rights, this is an original contribution to our understanding of future borders in Europe.
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,0, University of Southern Denmark (Department of Border Region Studies), course: European Border Region Development, language: English, abstract: The last decade saw the establishment of an European Union agency, FRONTEX, which was made in charge of the common border security polity established by the Schengen aquis which abolished all internal borders for the free movement of persons. Taking this development and its results under scrutiny, this paper will try to give an answer to the following research question: How does the actual application of the Schengen aquis by institutionalizing it in an agency (FRONTEX) affect or transform the border regimes of Member States in particular and the European Union in general? The methodology will consist of an analysis of the legal and deriving organizational design of the agency itself, and as well in describing the operational design of a distinctive FRONTEX deployment. Taking a closer look at the FRONTEX operations HERA I, II and III in particular shall help to define the characteristics and implications of its results in promulgating a paradigm which points out to the result the ongoing transformation of the European border security regime. While being aware of the incentives to create agencies lie in their supposed apolitical nature and ability to maintain policy continuity, which might also apply for the establishment of FRONTEX as an European Union agency, the notorious and critical acclaim this institution faces in the media is another incentive to take as a first step of the analysis a closer look at the historic and legal roots of the agency its impact on the European border regime so far. This will be followed by a description of the organization of FRONTEX and how the agency operates in the operations HERA I, II and III in the years 2006 and 2007.A paradigm will be drawn which an answer on if and how
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.
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.
Migrations and Border Processes: Practices and Politics of Belonging and Exclusion in Europe from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century brings together scholars from history, sociology and anthropology to explore cross-boundary mobility and migration during the formation, development, and transformation of the modern (nation-)state explicating the conflictive and fluctuating character of borders. Current media images of a "fortress Europe" suggest that migrations and borders are closely connected. The historical perspective demonstrates that such bordering processes are not new. However, they have developed new dynamics in different historical phases, from the formation of the modern (nation-)state in the nineteenth century to the creation of the European Union during the second half of the twentieth century. This book explains the dynamic relationships between borders and migratory movements in Europe from the nineteenth century to the present by approaching them from four different, overlapping angles: (1) the multiple actors involved, (2) scales and places of borders and their crossings, (3) the instruments and techniques employed and (4) the significance of social categories. Focusing on the historical, local specificity of the complex relations between migrations and boundaries will help denaturalize the concept of the border as well as further reflection on the shifting definitions of migration and belonging. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Borderlands Studies.
Has European integration helped to build peace in Europe and its neighbourhood? The book addresses this question through theoretically and empirically informed case studies that explore the successes of, and the challenges to EU cross-border cooperation as a tool for conflict transformation. Conceptually, the contributors link the question of transforming conflict to changing understandings of borders and bordering. Empirically, the contributions represent case studies of practices and discourses of EU-sponsored cross-border cooperation, and challenges to it. The case studies encompass the multiple geographical perspectives of the EU internal boundaries, its (sometimes disputed) external borders, and borders involving third countries. From a thematic point of view, the collection focuses on the intersection of two levels at which bordering processes unfold and are enacted: the level of governance, devolution and international intervention and that of grass roots or civil society efforts, including cultural cooperation and artistic production. The collection thus offers a kaleidoscopic view of border politics and conflict that zooms in and out of the EU frontiers and their geopolitics of peacebuilding, security and cooperation. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Geopolitics.
This book addresses the impact of EU law beyond its own borders, the use of law as a powerful instrument of EU external action, and some of the normative challenges this poses. The phenomenon of EU law operating beyond its borders, which may be termed its 'global reach', includes the extraterritorial application of EU law, territorial extension, and the so-called 'Brussels Effect' resulting from unilateral legislative and regulatory action, but also includes the impact of the EU's bilateral relationships, and its engagement with multilateral fora and the negotiation of international legal instruments. The book maps this phenomenon across a range of policy fields, including the environment, the internet and data protection, banking and financial markets, competition policy, and migration. It argues that in looking beyond the undoubtedly important instrumental function of law we can start to identify the ways in which law shapes the EU's external identity and its relations with other legal regimes, both enabling and constraining the EU's external action.
This engaging analysis of the refugee crisis explores how borders are formed, policed—and used to inflict violence on the poor. “In an era of terrorism, global inequality, and rising political tension over migration, Jones argues that tight border controls make the world worse, not better.” —Boston Globe Forty thousand people have died trying to cross between countries in the past decade, and yet international borders only continue to harden. The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union; the United States elected a president who campaigned on building a wall; while elsewhere, the popularity of right-wing antimigrant nationalist political parties is surging. Reece Jones argues that the West has helped bring about the deaths of countless migrants, as states attempt to contain populations and limit access to resources and opportunities. “We may live in an era of globalization,” he writes, “but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people.” In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and the dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the ailing decolonized world, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.
New Borders is the culmination of two years of research on the Mediterranean migration crisis of 2015-16. The book focuses on Lesbos, a Greek island that came under intense media and political scrutiny as more than one million people crossed its borders, changing and remaking life there. When these migrants--more than ten times the island's earlier population--landed on Lesbos's shores, local authorities were dismantled and replaced by supranational law and authority. In the ensuing months, reception turned to detention, rescue to registration, and refuge to duress. As borders across Europe have come to symbolize the European Union, this book provides answers to questions of European policy, the securitization of national boundaries, and how legislation determines who is free to belong to a place.
This volume traces the African ramifications of Europe’s southern border. While the Mediterranean Sea has become the main stage for the current play and tragedy between European borders and African migrants, Europe’s southern border has also been “offshored” to Africa, mainly through cooperation agreements with countries of transit and origin. By bringing into conversation case studies from different countries and disciplines, this volume seeks to open a window on the backstage of this externalization of borders. It casts light on the sites – from consulates to open seas and deserts – in which Europe’s southern border is made and unmade as an African reality, yielding what the editors call "EurAfrican borders." It further describes the multiple actors – state agents, migrants, smugglers, activists, etc. – that variously imagine, construct, cross or contest these borders, and situates their encounters within the history of uneven exchanges between Africa and Europe.
