ASTK12268U The Boundary of "the International" and the Borders of the States

Volume 2014/2015
Content

The concept of the border has traditionally been fundamental to our understanding of politics, its practices and institutions – in short, the object of study of the political sciences.  But borders are not what they used to be, or perhaps they have never been the way we commonly take them to be. 

In international political theory, the appearance of Walker’s Inside/Outside (1993) put down a striking challenge to show what (other than convenience or long habit) supported the distinction between domestic and inter-state politics which lies at the root of International Politics and of International Relations as such.  Beyond that, recent decades’ discussions over globalization (in all its multiple aspects), migration, trade liberalization etc. have a continuing focus on issues of how, and why borders are understood in politics and in the practices of government.

This course will examine more deeply state borders and why they may, or may not be conceptually robust enough to support the difference between ‘the international’ and ‘the national’. 

As is visible from the history of the creation of states, the notion of border has was been always difficult to establish: that is to say, their elevation to a crucial place in the identity of any state was contested from the start.  Latterly, ‘globalization’ has made states, and all of us, sensitive to what kind of thing or person can, or cannot cross a border easily or by right and what crossing a boundary means.  The practices of governmental institutions are changing accordingly.

This course first examines how the concept of the border, in all its ambivalence has come to be embedded in the classic conceptions of politics and the practices of statehood.  The middle section brings into focus many impulses that infringe or challenge the border.  It goes on to explain different, more recent understandings of the boundary, which interpret newer developments and account for the practices pursued.
 

I anticipate that the course will be structured under the following weekly headings:

1)            Introductions  (1 week)


Part I: The border in established political thinking (4 weeks)

2)            Determining the outside territorially: defence, self-determination and sovereignty

3)            Determining the inside territorially: domestic power & authority, mechanisms of control, a national economy, a national identity.

4)            Recent challenges: Globalization & post-international society 

5)            Sovereignty


Part II: Indeterminables (5 weeks)

6)            Migration

7)            Diasporas

8)            Life in the borderlands

9)            The view from ‘world cities’

10)         The global economy


Part III: Rethinking the Border of ‘the International’ (4 weeks)

11)         Theories of the border

12)         International Society

13)         Globalization, cosmopolitanism and their opposites

14)         Looking back at statehood and ‘the international’


Competencies

The course pre-supposes a university-level knowledge of history, comparative politics, political theory, and/or international relations.  It will extend students’ abilities in conceptual discussion and analysis of the contemporary world.  It can be a component to programmes in Political Theory, International Politics, or European & Comparative Politics

Learning Outcome

By the completion of the course, students should be able to:

 

  1. Show that they have read a good range of the course texts with a critical aware understanding.
  2. Demonstrate an informed understanding of the nature and dynamics of boundaries, borders, borderlands etc, and its implications for statehood and the international setting.
  3. Understand the conceptual difficulties implicit in contemporary developments of boundaries.

Agnew, John. 1999. Mapping Political PowerBeyondStateBoundaries: Territory, Identity, and Movement in World Politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 28, no. 3: 499-521.

.Albert, Matthias, David Jacobsen, and Yosef Lapid, eds. 2001. Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory.Minneapolis:MinnesotaUniversity Press.

.Balibar, Étienne. 2004[2001]. We the People of Europe?: Reflections on Transnational Citizenship. Translated by James Swenson. Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press.

.Bartelson, Jens. 1995. AGenealogy of Sovereignty.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.

.Barth, Frederik ed. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries.London: Allen and Unwin.

.Barth, Frederik. 2000. Boundaries and Connections. In Signifying Identities, edited by Anthony P. Cohen, 17-36.London: Routledge.

.Brenner, Neil, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones, and Martin Macleod, eds. 2002. State/Space: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

.Brunet-Jailly, Emmanuel. 2011. Geopolitics Special Issue: Borders and Borderlands.

.Caporaso, James. 1996. The European Union and Forms of State: Westphalia, Regulatory, or Post-Modern? Journal of Common Market Studies 34, no. 1: 29-52.

.Casey, Edward S.1997. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History.Berkeley andLos Angeles:University ofCalifornia Press.

.Cohen, Anthony P. 2000. Signifying Identities.London: Routledge.

.Delaney, David. 2005.Territory. A Short Introduction to Geography.Oxford: Blackwell.

.Derrida, Jacques. 1972. Positions. Paris: Editions de Minuit.

.Ferguson, Yale H., and Richard Mansbach. 2007. Post-internationalism and IR Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35, no. 3, September: 529-49.

.Fernandez, James W. 2000. Peripheral Wisdoms. In Signifying Identities, edited by Anthony P. Cohen, 117-44. London: Routledge.

.Foucault, Michel. 2004. Security, Territory, Population'. London: Palgrave.

.Hirst, Paul, and Grahame Thompson. 1999. Globalisation In Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance.Cambridge: Polity.

.Jönsson, Christer, Sven Tägil, and Gunnar Törnqvist. 2000. Organizing European Space.London: Sage.

.Khosravi, Shahram. 2011. 'Illegal' Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders.London: Macmillan.

.King, Russell, Michael Collyer, Anthony Fielding, and Ronald Skeldon. 2010. People on the Move: An Atlas of Migration.Berkeley,CA::University ofCalifornia Press.

.Kratochwil, Friedrich. 1986. Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System. World Politics 39, no. 1: 27-52.

.McGrew, Anthony, and David Held. 2002. Globalization/​anti-globalization.Cambridge: Polity.

.Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2007. The Creation of the World or Globalization. Translated by François Raffoul and David Pettigrew.New York:StateUniversity ofNew York Press.

.Rokkan, Stein. 1999. State formation, nation-building, and mass politics in Europe : The theory of Stein Rokkan based on his collected works, Peter Flora, Stein Kuhnle, and Derek Urwin.Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press.

.Ruggie, John. 1993. Territoriality and Beyond. Problematizing Modernity in International. International Organizations 1: 139-74.

.Sassen, Saskia. 2006. Cities in a World Economy.Thousand Oaks,Cal.: Pine Forge Press (Sage).

.Schendel, Willem van, and Itty Abraham. 2005. Illicit Flows and Criminal Things.IndianaUniversity Press.

.Scholte, Jan Aart. 2000. Globalization: A Critical Introduction.Basingstoke: Palgrave.

.Taylor, Peter J. 2004. World city network: A global urban analysis.London: Routledge.

.Taylor, Peter J. 2006. "Space and Sustainability: An Exploratory Essay on the Production of Social Spaces Through City-Work." GaWC Project. 10/1/07.

.Walker, R.B.J. (Rob). 1993. Inside/outside: International relations as political theory.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.

.Walker, R.B.J. (Rob). 2004. Sovereignties, Exceptions, Worlds,Copenhagen, October.

.Walker, R.B.J. (Rob). 2010. After the globe/before the world.London: Routledge.

.Wilson, Thomas H., and Hastings (eds) Donnan. 1998. Border Identities: Nation and State at international frontiers.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.

BA in political science/IR (exceptions tolerated).
The course runs on a schedule of fourteen sessions of 2 hours, which includes presentations from me and students, plus discussion. Reading and discussion outside class constitutes the larger part of the work students need to undertake. Both are promoted via a webpage for the course, where students will find questions to consider during each week of their studies, links to reading, summaries of lectures and discussions, and the possibility of participating in an ongoing discussion.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Exam
  • 79
  • Preparation
  • 168
  • Total
  • 275
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Written exam
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Criteria for exam assesment

Criteria for achieving the goals:

  • Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
  • Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
  • Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner