Abstract
Borders are barriers and bridges. Borders continue to define the front line of nation states, their will and their ability to defend one’s own territory. Borders gain meaning only in combination with those factors which define life outside and inside a border. Within borders, the authority of domestic rules and regulations is essential. Outside borders, the ability to protect is of primary importance. Illegal migration and transnational forms of organized crimes are involuntary transgressions of boundaries drawn by countries with the purpose to protect those living behind the border. Borders can become empty shells if state authority does not turn formal sovereignty into applied control of what comes in and what gets out. Borders can become prisons if they prevent people from leaving and living a life of their own choice elsewhere—or they can become spaces of deterrence for those who need shelter, protection and a new beginning elsewhere but cannot cross the boundaries of the preferred land. Emigration, immigration and the sad situation of enforced migration of refugees, touch on the complexity of borders. Borders are about orders. Borders do not design cultures nor do they prevent cultures and civilizations from thriving on either side. Borders are legal instruments, yet are often understood as defining national identity.