Nation-State Building and the Regulation of Mobility

Abstract

Borders are constitutive of modern statehood. Since the territory of the nation-state is primarily defined through its borders, no state would exist without borders (see, for example, Mearsheimer 2001). Therefore, borders are intrinsically linked to the concept of sovereignty and inherent in the “reification of state-territorial spaces as fixed units of secure sovereign space” (Agnew and Corbridge 1995: 100). Hartshorne defines a border as “that line which is to be accepted by all concerned as bounding the area in which everything is under jurisdiction of one state as against areas under different jurisdiction” (Hartshorne 1969: 44). Borders not only led to the external demarcation of states, but also had consequences for people’s right to movement. As part of the bordering process states appropriated the “legitimate means of movement” (Torpey 1998: 256), that is, they monopolized the authority to restrict movement. In so doing, they brought strategic resources — including the population — under their control (Anderson 1996). The development of the modern territorial state was therefore characterized by its external demarcation and the closure of its membership space. Both forms of closure had consequences for the regulation of mobility, as we will show in this chapter.