The Border is Back: Policy and Politics in Europe and the United States

A mere 15 years ago Mabel Berezin and I published an edited volume entitled Europe Without Borders. In this collective volume we argued that our most salient insight was that the reigning nation-state system was giving way to new and complex political and cultural identifications simultaneously at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels. Contemporary Europe, we argued, is characterized by “…cultural hyphenation, hybridity and syncretization.” In this sense, national borders were becoming less relevant. We were wrong, however. Since then, throughout the world, the construction of hard walls has been accelerating: It appears that, by most estimates, Europe will soon have more physical barriers on its national borders than it did during the Cold War. Indeed, during the years after 1989, more new fences, walls, and militarized boundaries have been built (63 in 2016) than during the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. There has also been a greater focus on the importance of border and controls. The number of walls and barriers has grown from 20 in 2001 to 63 in 2016. In addition, more and more sophisticated resources are now devoted to controlling the border, and the detention of migrants without acceptable papers has become routine in both Europe and the United States. In these ways the border is back, and populist mobilizations have both supported this trend and reflected these changes in electoral opinion. On the other hand, neither Europe nor the United States have become impenetrable fortresses. Rates of immigration remain high. Although concern has certainly grown in public opinion, concern has not led to growing opposition to immigration. Instead, a growing focus on the border has made the politics of immigration more complex. In this paper, I analyze how the border has been politicized, and which aspects of border control have been most subject to political mobilization in Europe and the United States. I argue that there have been important differences in political concerns on both sides of the Atlantic that different political parties have benefited in different ways. I argue that, above all, the border is back in the context of the emergence of a new radical right movement and political parties on both sides of the Atlantic. The border is back, not because of economic protectionism (although that may emerge as well), but as a result of growing support for a reinforcement of national identity and border control. In the context of electoral politics, political parties have driven border issues as political priorities.