Borders and Border Regimes - Part One

Borders have been at the heart of political discussion in Europe during the past two decades, and throughout the post-war period. They symbolized the political division of the continent into "east" and "west" prior to the events of 1989-1991. Their symbolic centrality to the events of 1989 is clear.




The video above is a reminder of the ways in which the events of 1989 were experienced. Based on footage from the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint between East and West Berlin taken on the evening of 9th November 1989 it captures the uncertainty and confusion that characterized the wall opening. It is also a reminder that for those living on either side of them borders form part of an everyday reality of division.

The "border regime" that exists in contemporary Europe has changed considerably over the last nineteen years. With the entrance of former socialist states into the European Union beginning in May 2004, and their entry into Schengen area in December 2007, restrictions on travel for the citizens of their states have eased considerably. Europe has not become borderless: the UK and Ireland still retain border controls, while more importantly a patchwork of restrictions - allowed as transitional measures under the terms of accession treaties - prevents citizens of Central and Eastern Europe from participating legally in many western European labour markets. Most importantly, the Schengen regime has established a fortress-like wall between the interior of the European Economic Area, and those states that lie outside it; especially those states in the South that lack the bargaining power with Brussels, London, or Paris, to negotiate exemptions to the stringent visa requirements imposed. In Spain's African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla physical barriers have been built to literally fence Europe off to those who would travel to it from outside. In a brilliant essay, Navid Kermani has drawn our attention to the ways in which the management of Europe's borders reveals a striking contrast between the success of Europeans in overcoming internal political divisions, and their utter failure in managing the consequences of the economic gulf that separates Europeans from the majority of the global population that live in the South.

This emergent "Schengen border regime" is contested in a number of ways in contemporary Europe. Populist politics directed against immigration are one of these ways. Yet this populist politics rests on a notion that the border of a territorial state, firmly under the control of its national government is somehow the natural state of things - hence the tabloid demand for secure borders. An examination of the "border regimes" that have existed in Europe's recent history suggests that this notion is flawed ......