The Changing Significance of European Borders

The accelerating globalization of economic and cultural life and the growing density of international and supranational institutions have led many to assume the decreasing significance, even practical redundancy, of state borders. Yet, the case for redundancy is weak. Far from disappearing, state borders have proliferated with the break-up of the Soviet bloc. They have become more flexible, differentiated and salient as the Single European Market has re-configured the borders of the European Union (EU). Internal and external border regions have become sites of extensive cross-border cooperation promoted by a multiplicity of local governmental and non-governmental agencies, their respective national governments and the European Commission. While the number of state borders is increasing, their changing functions and meanings are becoming manifest through issues such as environmental pollution, animal diseases, crime, immigration, refugees, asylum seekers and the de-regulation and re-regulation of the global economy. Yet, academics and key policy have often seen them as marginal to both disciplinary and policy concerns. The scale of recent border change, however, has encouraged a substantial growth in research on borders across a range of social science disciplines and a renewed policy interest in border regions by the EU and its member states (see for example, Hansen, 1983; Sahlins, 1989; Eger and Langer, 1996; M. Anderson, 1996; O’Dowd and Wilson, 1996; Newman, 1998; Paasi, 1998; Sparke, 1998; Wilson and Donnan, 1998; Anderson and O’Dowd, 1999). This renewed interest has been accompanied by a growing recognition of the fundamental importance of boundaries in social life. Wallace (1992: 14), a leading analyst of European integration, notes that the question of territorial boundaries is central to the study of political systems, legal jurisdictions and socio-economic interaction. The Indian sociologist, T.K. Oommen has even suggested that the ‘rise and fall, the construction and deconstruction of various types of boundaries is the very story of human civilisation and of contemporary social transformation’ (cited in Paasi, 1998: 83) This essay attempts to provide an overview of the changing significance of EU state borders as a contribution to the analysis of