Selected conceptual issues in border studies

The Multiscalar Production of Borders

“…Quite the contrary: globalisation depends on the partition of space between states, and increasingly between regions and cities, because capital can circulate only between competing legal spaces created within states and/or regions and with the support of their guaranties. 25 Indeed, Western nation-states have themselves been especially active in promoting globalisation by catering to corporate capital and big business to strengthen their economic advantage. The global system thus needs inequalities, and the political borders that perpetuate them and these borders in turn are inconceivable without specific legitimising identities.…”

Cross-Border Cooperation as Conflict Transformation: Promises and Limitations in EU Peacebuilding

“…This perspective allows us to see borders as serving vital economic functions; as instruments for the organisation of democratic practice; and as markers of identity and security. Yet, it also reveals them as the source of tensions over human rights abuses, stereotyping, conflict and violence (Kolossov and Scott 2013). As early as 1999, James Anderson and Liam O'Dowd outlined a new agenda for Border Studies that foregrounded the inherent complexity of borders as contradictory sites of politics:…”

Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire Boundary Dispute: The Customary Agreements that Dispel a Looming Interstate War

“…The creation of this maritime boundary was to de-escalate the tension between the two countries. Scholars such as Newman (2006), Scott (2013) posited that the primary functions of borders are to protect what is inside from outside. Nevertheless, various scholars believe that some state authorities may build a strong wall and fences between other states, to prevent outside influence (Hsiao, Tsai & lee, 2012).…”