Border lines: globalisation, de-territorialisation and the reconfiguring of national boundaries

The significance of national borders has been called into question by the corrosive consequence of accelerated globalisation. Many commentators have assumed that intensified worldwide inter-connections and time-space compression entail a decline in state capacities and an increased permeability of their borders. Trans-national flows of capital, commodities, information and people, so the argument runs, have undermined the ability of states to regulate activities within and across their borders. In short, a ‘deterritorialised’, ‘borderless’ world is invoked which, it is claimed, fundamentally transforms economic, political and cultural realities. This paper critically examines this thesis, rejects its strongest version and goes on to argue for the continued relevance of national borders - as demarcating dejure sovereignty, as regulators of movement, as markers of citizenship rights, and as instruments for the classification of populations and the reproduction of identities. It claims that borders have been reconfigured rather than uniformly eroded, that their permeability is highly differentiated, and that this permeability reflects and reinforces the power relations of uneven globalisation.