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In The Border, Martin A. Schain examines why border policies have been changing and the influence of immigration politics. Schain shows how the political process of boundary-making and enforcement has resulted in new political and legal forms and administrative organizations. Comparing France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, he makes the counter-intuitive argument that, in a more globalized world, borders have actually become stronger. He uncovers
the story of how liberal democracies have sidestepped the constraints of "embedded liberalism," the limits imposed by courts and legislative action by human rights groups. In spite of innovative legal and administrative institutions, barriers to entry remain.
About the author
Martin A. Schain is Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at New York University. He is the founder and former director of the Center for European Studies at New York University, former chair of the European Union Studies Association, and co-editor of Comparative European Politics. He has authored or edited multiple books, including The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain and the United States and Comparative Federalism: The European Union and the United States in Comparative Perspective, co-edited with Anand Menon (Oxford).
Summary
In our globalized world, borders are back with a vengeance. New data shows a massive increase of walls and barriers between countries after 2001. However, at the same time, the flow of people and the growth of trade have continued at impressive rates, and arguments for more open borders remain relevant. In The Border, Martin Schain compares how and why border policy has become increasingly important, politicized, and divisive in both Europe and the United States. Drawing from an intensive analysis of documents and interviews, he argues that border control is a growing international movement. In Europe, the European Union is under scrutiny, and many countries seek to block the entry of asylum-seekers from wars in the Near East. In the US, Donald Trump pledged to build a wall along the Mexico border, restricted the entry of Syrian asylum-seekers, and more generally tried to ban Muslim immigration. Moreover, on both sides of the Atlantic, trade barriers appear in the political agendas of major parties. Schain delves into these interlinked phenomena, showing that migration, identity, and trade have been packaged and transformed into hotly contested issues of border governance and control.
Additional text
Over the course of the book, Schain explores the evolution of border policy on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as how these policies have been enforced in Europe and the US. In both cases, problems related to migration and global interconnectedness have been framed by a complex web of interest groups, political parties, and federal competition. Perhaps Schain's most important point is that in all cases border policy has become more demanding for migrants seeking entry into nations with heavily guarded borders, but for different reasons. European nations tend to focus on questions of potential integration, while US concerns focus more on unauthorized entry and residence. Territoriality thus persists in the globalized, digitally connected world.
