Visas and Walls. Nazli Avdan
anxieties may be exaggerated, clandestine transnational actors impede the state’s bid to exclusive territorial control.1 Economically open states prioritize effective border management insofar as border instability detracts from economic exchange (Simmons 2005) and stable borders require effective control over transboundary movement (Newman 2000). Far from erasing borders, globalization has served to bolster the importance of border control (Naim 2005; Newman 2006).
In this security climate, it should come as no surprise that policymakers propose harder borders as a panacea against transnational threats. The new security climate also focuses on individuals as threats, even if origin governments are not hostile. As a consequence of this shift in focus, controlling human mobility is essential to maintaining security. Uncontrolled borders are vulnerable to different types of transnational threats, and interlinkages among organized crime and terrorist groups make border management all the more demanding (Shelley 2006). In this context, borders emerge as ramparts of defense against non-state threats (Biersteker 2002). Countries retool existing border management systems to adapt to the new focus on counterterrorism (Andreas and Nadelman 2006). For instance, while pre-inspection at airports had been implemented as a check on illegal immigration in the 1990s, the United States expanded its scope within the context of the global war on terror. Similarly, terrorism made a comeback on the European continent after 2001. The Madrid and London incidents animated a flurry of measures labeled as antiterrorism directives.
Discerning borders ward off threats and, at the same time, bridge economic flows. To accomplish this, they permit benign flows while weeding out malign flows. Discerning border policies are also politically appealing as a means of handling globalized violence. Terrorists rely on secrecy and surprise, which magnifies the psychological malaise that results from terrorist violence. Bolstering interdependence sovereignty—control over transborder flows—goes some way toward managing the psychological repercussions of transnational terrorism. The new security milieu has augmented the importance of border control by showing that porous borders are likely to serve as a conduit for transnational violence. Keohane expands on this: “Geographical space, which has been seen as a natural barrier and a locus for human barriers, now must be seen as a carrier as well” (2002, 32).
The contemporary foreign policy context has thus broadened the conceptualization of security to encompass transnational threats. In traditional IR terms, security is “defined in political military terms as the protection of the boundaries and integrity of the state” (Doty 1998, 73). The new security paradigm blurs the strict distinction between the domestic and international insofar as a military logic is applied to coping with atypical threats. Writing after 9/11, Kraska elaborated on this, noting “the traditional distinctions between military/police, war/law enforcement, and internal/external security are rapidly blurring” (2001, 501). As I outline below, the militarization of borders whereby states deploy specialized and sophisticated technology fits within this trend. From a broader theoretical standpoint, this alters how sovereignty is practiced. Traditionally, states reserved policing efforts to the domestic realm and military operations to balancing against external threats (Clausewitz et al. 2006). The new focus on asymmetric trends breaks this distinction down, with the result that borders reassert the privilege of the state (Rosiere and Jones 2012).
Do security incentives make for harder borders? I answer this question by focusing on transnational terrorism to capture the contemporary security dimension. Policy tightening can take several forms. Tougher policies commence with forging a link between different types of undesirable flows. The United States accomplished this in the wake of 9/11 by rebranding law enforcement efforts as antiterrorism measures, which served to stress the link between illegal migration, organized crime, and terrorism (Andreas and Nadelman 2006; Andreas and Richard 2001). At the same time, states harness existing measures by making entry requirements tougher. Higher rates of visa denials, the requirement of in-person interviews and more extensive paperwork to apply for visas, and wider surveillance exemplify this trend. States also establish tighter controls through an extraterritorial shift of border controls whereby the state’s territorial reach expands outward (Bigo 2000). This culminates in an enlarged border zone (Bigo 2011). The recalibration of policies shifts part of the burden of control to other actors, such as other states as well as third parties such as airlines, travel agencies, and other private companies with authority to monitor travelers. The 9/11 Commission endorsed such a shift, arguing that “the US government cannot meets its obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments” (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States 2002, 390). This shift is exemplified by prescreening checks, airline sanctions, and stricter requirements for upstream policies of control that by definition screen passengers abroad. In other words, harder borders expand the scope of who is monitored and bring more actors into the fold, thereby enlarging the scope of actors responsible for monitoring.
Harder borders also manifest through visible, on-site policies that we would typically associate with border closure: physical barricades, cameras installed at border ports, and deployment of paramilitary personnel, or at the more aggressive extreme, minefields. Part and parcel of this process is a movement away from policing to a militarized approach to border control (Donaldson 2005). This transition transforms borders from sites of law enforcement and policing to sites of military operations aiming to prevent violent non-state actors from obtaining access to the state’s territory (Lutterbeck 2004). Such high-profile border instruments are more amenable to serving ceremonial functions. Insofar as these instruments affirm the state’s ability to protect, high-profile, highly visible policies mollify trepidation over non-state violence. On one level, high-profile policies have a demonstrative purpose (Andreas 2009). These policies are rooted in political motives; rather than deterring access, these measures communicate moral resolve and display authority.
On another level, however, technological development and sophistication have advanced high-profile policies. Some examples of more sophisticated technology include unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to detect underground tunnels, and new motion and heat sensors as part of a virtual fence (Elden 2013). These instruments also permit a smart borders approach to border control, which increasingly obviates the need for human personnel while also expanding the breadth and depth of the security zone. This pattern goes hand in hand with the militarization of borders insofar as the newer and more advanced technologies deployed are purchased from military suppliers and the tactics of monitoring cross over from the military realm (Jones and Johnson 2016). Not surprisingly, as a consequence of increased sophistication, border control requires an expanded budget. Bigo (2014) defines the European Union’s approach to border control as one of policing and monitoring, in contrast to the militarized approach of the United States. The past decade and a half has seen the European Union move closer to the U.S. model. As a result of this trend, Frontex, the European Union’s border-monitoring agency, saw its budget rise fifteenfold (Frontex 2014).
To recap, highly visible border policies can simultaneously demonstrate military strength and fulfill symbolic roles. Rather than debordering, globalization has resulted in a rebordering, a process that rearticulates sovereign power.2 In addition, “the old model of security at discrete crossing points and dispersed monitoring of spaces in-between has been replaced with a model that strives for ‘total awareness’ and ‘effective control’ over the entire border zone” (Jones and Johnson 2016, 194). As extraterritorial policies have been gaining currency, the state has witnessed a shift in not just how but where it exerts territorial sovereignty.
At first blush, we might expect a perfect correlation and an automatic connection between the threat of terrorism and harder borders. In fact, this expectation seemingly bears fruit after significant transnational terrorist attacks, with commentators predicting tighter border controls and expressing fears that the events harken back to the immediate aftermath of 9/11. After a terrorist attack in Ottawa in October 2014, Canada’s former deputy prime minister John Manley forecasted a clampdown on border controls, stating: “If it is in fact related to religious extremism, then I think we will see an increased ramping up of U.S. paranoia about the border and Canada being a source of potential risk for the United States” (“Ottawa Shooting” 2014). After the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France drew up proposals for more rigorous security checks, calling for “immediate, reinforced, systematic