Sovereignty and Territorial Borders in a Global Age1

Abstract

In an age marked by economic globalization, regional integration, and increasing transborder flows, some have questioned the continued viability of state sovereignty and territorial borders. This essay examines the conditions of sovereignty and borders in a world of trading states, exploring how conceptions of sovereignty are reflected in the grand strategy of advanced industrial democracies. By disaggregating sovereignty into its constitutive parts, the essay not only provides insights into how these facets affect modern statecraft but also reveals an underconceptualized dimension: societal sovereignty. Whereas sovereignty is willingly ceded by states to gain economically from increased trade and capital mobility, public concern over the social, political, and economic effects of high levels of international migration indicate a growing sensitivity to the maintenance of sovereignty over access to social and political community. In this process, borders serve an increasingly important symbolic function in maintaining stable conceptions of national identity that constitute the cornerstone of the nation‐state.

Asylum-seeking migration, identity-building and social cohesion: policy-making vs. social action for cultural recognition

“…Yet, as already stated, UK government policies are aimed at identity-building, or nation-building in the face of asylum-fuelled multiculturalism around a strong 'imagined' British national identity (Rudolph, 2005). In this sense, the policies demonstrate the capacity for UK govermentality over Scottish devolved governance to control and shape British national identity among Scotland based ethnic minorities and to manage multiculturalism and social cohesion (Rudolph, 2005;Gillespie, 2007;Fortier, 2010, p. 24;Lentin & Titley, 2011).…”

“…In this sense, the policies demonstrate the capacity for UK govermentality over Scottish devolved governance to control and shape British national identity among Scotland based ethnic minorities and to manage multiculturalism and social cohesion (Rudolph, 2005;Gillespie, 2007;Fortier, 2010, p. 24;Lentin & Titley, 2011). For instance, Scotland-based migrants aspiring to be UK citizens are also expected to go through the citizenship classes.…”

Populism, Sovereigntism, and the Unlikely Re-Emergence of the Territorial Nation-State

“…The border is a central component of the operation of sovereignty in international law since it is through it that the territory of one state (and thus its legal jurisdiction) is separated from another. This border, the theatre of the most brutal episodes in recent and distant history, the locus of traditional conceptions of sovereignty from Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmitt (Mostov 2008, 19-24), the border that according to globalisation theorists only two decades ago was becoming porous, waning or disappearing altogether as a temporary phase in the history of sovereignty, that same border is being re-constituted as a place of physical and figurative action (Rudolph 2005). In historical terms, borders have served a number of practical purposes on behalf of the nation-state.…”

International Water Law and the Quest for Common Security

“…62 See O Brown, 'The Environment and Our Security -How Our Understanding of the Links Has Changed' (International Conference on Environment, Peace and Dialogue among Civilizations). 63 Mahbub ul Haq, speaking at the launch of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report (1997), cited in ibid at 2. 64 See, e.g., W Scholtz, 'Collective (Environmental) Security: The Yeast for the Refinement of International Law' (2009) while researchers of international development incorporated environmental factors in their analysis of violent conflicts in the developing world to argue for restructuring the global economy.…”

“…315 Case Concerning the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v. Slovakia), General List no. 92 (1997); reprinted in 37 ILM 162 (1998).…”