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A book review of the 2021 Harvard U Press book On the Edge: Life along the Russia–China Border, by Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey.

Special Poetry Section with a co-authored introduction and a collection featuring 39 poets from around the world.

This special issue of International Studies focuses on ‘how the British-exit is impacting the European Union’. This introduction is a review of the context, costs and institutional repercussions, as well as the very recent the UK/European Union trade deal and implications for customs borders. Eight articles then detail consequences for European Union policies and important trading relationships: Immigration, Citizenship, Gender, Northern Ireland, Trade and impacts on India, Canada and Japan.

This introduction outlines the themes of the special issue (borders, borderlands, and border theory since the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns) and summarizes its contents (a research article, two dozen essays, plus photography and videography). The introduction also includes an interactive map hyperlinking the contents of the issue, and raises new lines of thought for border studies in the era of COVID-19.

Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This second suite of commentaries considers the challenges confronting governments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the decades to come with an increasingly broad lens: the need to understand and rethink the architecture of the state given recent and future challenges awaiting governments; the need to rethink government-civil society relations and policies to deliver services for increasingly diverse citizens and communities; the need for new repertoires and sensibilities on the part of governments for recognizing, anticipating, and engaging on governance risks despite imperfect expert knowledge and public skepticism; how the COVID-19 crisis has caused us to reconceive international and sub-national borders where new "borders" are being drawn; and the need to anticipate a steady stream of crises similar to the COVID-19 pandemic arising from climate change and related challenges, and develop new national and international governance strategies for fostering population and community resilience.Plusieurs universitaires canadiens et internationaux ont offert des suggestions sur les implications de la pandémie du COVID‐19 pour les gouvernements et les institutions de la fonction publique, ainsi que des orientations futures pour la recherche et la pratique en administration publique. Cette deuxième série de commentaires examine les défis que devront affronter les gouvernements en raison de la pandémie de COVID‐19 et dans les décennies à venir, dans une optique large. Cette série souligne le besoin de comprendre et de repenser l'architecture de l'État, de revoir les relations entre le gouvernement et la société civile pour fournir des services à des citoyens et des communautés de plus en plus divers, d'élaborer de nouvelles façons d'identifier et d'anticiper les risques, et de s'engager malgré l'imperfection des connaissances d'experts et le scepticisme du public, de repenser les frontières, tout ceci en tenant compte des crises et défis à venir, de façon à promouvoir la résilience de la population et des communautés.

This review essay explores the contributions of six recent volumes in border studies.

This special section (thanks to the Jean Monnet Network, a European Union Erasmus+ Grant) explores the impact of migration crises on European borders, internal and external, from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. The following articles adopt comparative, historical, legal, sociological, and discursive approaches in order to confront questions arising from the 2015 Schengen and Dublin political crises, which seem to have put an end to the ideal of a “Europe without borders”.

Cet article analyse la contribution de la contestation contre l’UE a une narration alternative de l’Europe. Se fondant sur des theories de l’euroscepticisme, l’article soutient que la contestation contre l’UE ne necessite pas d’etre basee sur un rejet fondamental de l’integration europeenne. En effet, elle peut faire une contribution constructive a une vision alternative de l’Europe en accentuant des valeurs comme la solidarite, la democratie, les droits humains ou la protection de l’environnement. L’analyse empirique soutient cet argument en demontrant comment la contestation de l’UE en Allemagne a evoque des images de « heros » et de « scelerats » d’une Europe alternative.

This article is a review of regional cross-border coordination and cooperation around the world. Two questions are raised: when trade dominates, does economic or functional interdependency result in cross-border linkages? Second, when politics and institutions mediate cross-border relations, do economic relations intensify? Specifically, do local–central networks of government actors and institutions mediate such processes when they emerge? To investigate those two questions, this work focuses on cross-border relations in various parts of the world primarily focusing of the role trading relations or local–central relations would play in developing cross-border networks spanning an international boundary. In an era of globalisation, increased trade across regions of the world seem to have led to a specific increased cross-border cooperation, however, taking different forms from intense trading relations to resulting cross-border institutionalisation. Those forms of cross-border cooperation in the various regions of the world, however, do not result from the same drivers: For the purpose of a comparative analysis of cross-border relations, the argument developed here is that regional drivers determine types of relations from no relations to intense trading and government-like forms of cooperation. However, in most cases as suggested below, the prime drivers of cross-border relations, trade, do not necessarily translate into increased border spanning governmental activism, and government cross-border institutionalisation does not necessarily transmute into increased economic integration.

Book review

A review of the 2017 edited volume, Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersection.

Why is it important to discuss the work of Michel Foucher on African borders in JBS in 2019/20? The brief answer is that in our globalizing world, faced with many nationalisms, the cultural borders...

In 2008 Iceland experienced the deepest and fastest economic crisis ever recorded in peacetime, which included the total collapse of its financial sector, as well as significant erosion of its currency. This paper concerns a localized protest movement that occurred in the wake of the 2008 crash in Iceland: the mobilization of protest to a settlement deal, known as the Icesave settlement. We interviewed just over 30 actors involved in the mobilization, including politicians, activists, and academics. Our data show that both sides of the Icesave dispute drew on a set of three interwoven narratives, or framings of the debate, that respectively drew on ideas around natural justice, citizenship, and nationalism. Several key discursive intersections between these narratives and the political and economic landscape in the post-economic crisis not only rendered the Icesave dispute salient and commensurate with the experiences of Icelanders living through the crash, but also gave greater credibility to the no-Icesave campaign. We conclude by arguing that the Icesave dispute provides a unique lens onto central questions concerning democracy and the possibilities of meaningful citizen engagement and participation in an era of increasing globalization and of neo-liberal forms of economic governance. Our findings contribute to this literature by revealing some of the particularities of the Icelandic context that were important in creating the socio-historical moment that led to the success of the anti-Icesave movement.

A brief letter of introduction from the editors.

Politics of Urbanism: Seeing Like a City is Warren Magnusson's most recent book. It will find a permanent place as a key contribution in the annals of urban studies, urban politics, political and state theory and international relations, marking a turning point in the way scholars, activists and policymakers see the world. In particular, Magnusson fundamentally questions how we understand and analyse our world from the perspective of the state (the illusion of the sovereign), suggesting we shift instead to the perspective of the city (with its multiplicity of authorities). 'How welcome should this be?' is the question that I put to three Canadian colleagues - Roger Keil, Andrew Sancton and Zack Taylor - at the 2011 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Waterloo, ON, Canada. Their answers follow a summary of this rather concise and very readable book that Serena Kataoka and I prepared to introduce those commentaries.

Canada and the United States form a highly integrated economic region; indeed, since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, economic integration of the two countries has progressed faster than economic growth. In the 1990s scholars suggested that the primary characteristic of the Canada- US border and surrounding regions was an environment facilitating the seamless flow of goods and capital. But since 9/11, borders have hardened, and some argue that securitization has impeded trade and is now affecting all policy arenas concerned with borderlands. This article is a review of those arguments.In this article I show that since 9/11, Canada and the US have worked out a border policy that is generally "harder" but "softer" for pre-cleared goods and people. First, I give an overview of the state of cross-border relations and policies before 9/11. I then review the current status of free trade and economic integration in the context of arguments that post-9/11 policies hardened the border to suggest that Canada and the US have safeguarded and deepened their friendship since 9/11 and to make some inferences about the future of Canada-US border relations.A SEAMLESS BORDER BEFORE 9/11?Academics argued in the 1990s that the Canada-US border was increasingly transparent to trade. At the time scholars noted that for the past 25 years, the internationalization of the economy had increased the influence of market forces, and that states had increasingly been "risking free trade."1The signing of NAFTA represented a turning point in North American trade relations; concurrently, states were losing the capacity to regulate effectively within national boundaries.2 Regional studies attributed this shift to economic reorganization.3 This literature assumed that the world transformation resulted from economic restructuring which, in turn, the North American free trade regime enhanced. Some argued that NAFTA leads to the development of a borderless world, as regions will be delineated only by the sharing of information and goods, rather than international borders. Kenichi Ohmae, for instance, when looking at similar policy mechanisms in Asia, suggested that the political influences of the regions in question did not match the economic influence of regional trade flows.4NAFTA AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATIONThe Canadian and US economies have become highly integrated. Since the 1990s, two-way trade between Canada and the US has more than doubled. This trade increase from US$45.6 billion in 1977 to US$818 billion (imports and exports) in 2010 - an increase of 1,800 percent - was largely the result of the signing of the Canada-US free trade agreement (FTA) in 1988 and NAFTA in 1993.5 Originally, a few Canadian manufacturing sectors, particularly primary goods and automobiles, formed a unique economic ensemble with the US. In the 1990s 81 percent of all Canadian exports were end products and semi-manufactured goods, with an additional US$42 billion worth of services.6 In 2009, total merchandise trade with Canada was down to US$429.7 billion (a 28 percent decrease from 2008), consisting of US$224.9 billion (a 33 percent decrease from 2008) in imports and US$204.7 billion (a 21.5 percent decrease from 2008) in exports. In 2009, slightly less than US$1.2 billion in goods crossed the border each day. Trade with Canada represented 16.4 percent of total US trade, with Canada purchasing 19.4 percent of US exports and supplying 14.4 percent of total US imports. Also in 2009, the US supplied 51.1 percent of Canada's imports of goods and purchased 75 percent of Canada's merchandise exports.7Trade between the US and Canada expanded rapidly following the signing of the FTA in 1988. The goal of NAFTA, which came into force on 1 January 1994, was to expand trade and investment among Canada, Mexico, and the US. NAFTA did not modify the implementation of the 1988 FTA. It organized the phasing out of tariffand non-tariff barriers on originating goods. …

PurposeThe twenty‐first‐century globalizing economy and free trade regimes in Europe and North America transform regions and their economies. This paper aims to question, in comparative perspective with European experiences, whether free trade, and particularly continental economic integration in North America, impacts the economies, and leads to forms of transboundary governance. It then seeks to complement this discussion by a review of the perceptions public managers have of those developments.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a review of the literature, public policy and individual interviews, and a survey of 700 private and public policy decision makers.FindingsThe evidence presented in this paper suggests that increased economic interdependence has led to the emergence of trans‐boundary governance. Public managers and policy‐makers view those as mechanisms that ease trade and public policy relations.Originality/valueContrary to broad assumption, North American trans‐boundary policy networks are helping trade relations and facilitate policy making.

In North America, why and how municipalities in large metropolitan areas cooperate is a pressing question. Both in Canada and the United States, the literature has been greatly influenced by the public choice views that rational actors have very limited rational or economic incentives to cooperate unless the state steps in to rule cooperation. But beyond the ideological debate, these views are about issues of regional cooperation public choice (polycentrism); (3) metropolitan governance (new regionalism); and (4) rescaling and re-territorialization, which are tightly linked to value systems where: a) metropolitan government centers on monocentric efficiency; b) public choice on polycentric efficiency; c) metropolitan governance on equity and competitiveness; and d) rescaling and re-territorialization centers on global competitiveness. These discussions set the stage for this paper's main argument: in North America, the Greater Vancouver Regional District is an exemplary commitment to metropolitan cooperation.Spanish En Norteamérica esta emergiendo una pregunta urgente: ¿por qué y cómo cooperan los municipios de las grandes áreas metropolitanas? En Canadá y Estados Unidos, la literatura ha sido fuertemente influenciada por la teoría del public choice, según la cuál los actores racionales tienen muy escasos incentivos racionales o económicos para cooperar, a menos que el estado intervenga y ordene la cooperación. Obviamente, más allá del debate ideológico, estas visiones abordan asuntos de cooperación regional desde varias perspectivas normativas: (1) el gobierno metropolitano (antiguo regionalismo); (2) public choice (policentrismo); (3) gobierno metropolitano (nuevo regionalismo); y (4) reorganización escalar y re-territorialización, transformaciones que se conectan estrechamente al sistema de valores donde: a) el gobierno metropolitano se centra en la eficiencia monocéntrica, b) la public choice sobre la eficiencia policéntrica, c) la gobernanza metropolitana en la equidad y la competitividad, y d) la reorganizacion escalar y reterritorialización se enfoca sobre competitividad global. Estas discusiones preparan el escenario para el principal argumento de este artículo: en Norteamérica, el Gran Distrito Regional de Vancouver es probablemente un compromiso ejemplar de cooperación metropolitana.French En Amérique du Nord une question pressante se pose, à savoir pourquoi et comment les municipalités des grandes métropoles coopèrent. Tant au Canada qu'aux États-Unis la li érature a été fortement influencée par la théorie du choix public, selon laquelle les acteurs rationnels ne trouvent que très peu d'incitations rationnelles ou économiques qui les incitent à coopérer, à moins que l'État n'intervienne pour ordonner la coopération. Il est toutefois évident que, derrière le débat idéologique, ces débats abordent les questions de coopération régionale à partir de différentes perspectives normatives, (1) le gouvernement métropolitain (ancien régionalisme), (2) le choix public (polycentrisme), (3) la gouvernance métropolitaine (nouveau régionalisme), et (4) la réorganisation scalaire et la reterritorialisation, des transformations qu'elles relient étroitement à des systèmes de valeurs, où : a) le gouvernement métropolitain se centre sur l'efficacité monocentriste, b) le choix public sur l'efficacité polycentriste, c) la gouvernance métropolitaine sur l'équité et la compétitivité, et d) la réorganisation scalaire et la reterritorialisation se focalisent sur la compétitivité globale. Ces discussions forment la toile de fond du principal sujet de cet article : en Amérique du Nord, le Greater Vancouver Regional District constitue probablement un compromis exemplaire en matière de coopération métropolitaine.

Since 9/11 (11 September 1989) border and borderland studies have come back to the centre of numerous interdisciplinary discussions. Most of these focus on issues of security, hence, also addressin...

This is a special issue of Journal of Borderland Studies focused on the theme: "Rarely Studied Borderlands." The idea for this theme emerged during the organization of the last Border Region in Transition (BRIT IX) conference, held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, United States, in January 2008. The organizing committee, co-chaired by the editors of this special issue, Don Alper and Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, had intentionally widened the call for papers to include countries outside of Europe and North America; that is, to South America, Asia, and Africa. As a result, the over 150 participants of the BRIT hailed from 18 different countries. The wide range and diversity of the participants and research presented highlighted the importance of moving borderlands research away from its usual European and North American focus and expanding its theoretical and empirical contributions to include research on borderlands from across the world. This special issue takes up the challenge of pulling together research on these rarely studied borderlands: the Russian/Chinese border, the "Caprivi Strip" (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe), the border region of North Santander (Colombia) and Tachira (Venezuela), the Euregion Karelia on the Finish/Russian border, the internal borders of the European Union, and the Indigenous peoples' "non-borders" in North America.