C7974 - BORDERS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Learning outcomes

The aim of this Course is to explore ‘border’ as a concept, with its legal, economic, social, and mostly political implications. Students will acquire knowledge on the centrality of this concept for IR theory and for the understanding of global dynamics more at large, and will get familiar with practices of bordering, hard and soft

Course contents

The course is part of the Jean Monnet Project MOVE EU, funded by the European Commission. It aims to investigate how the border, as an institution and a critical concept in International Relations (IR), relates to and challenges other key concepts such as sovereignty, territory, rights, and identity.

The ‘border’ seems to have regained centrality, both academically and in very practical terms. Major events have brought borders back to centre stage. Brexit and the reintroduction of internal border controls in the EU following the refugee crisis have highlighted the renewed importance of geographical borders. More recently, borders have been challenged not only by unilateral military actions but also by economic and political developments. Compared with the past, when crises and geopolitical challenges also affected borders, there appears to be something qualitatively different today in the tendency to regard borders as key signifiers for making sense of uncertainty and as an ontological compass, including for the EU.

This course will provide theoretical and conceptual insights into borders and their multiple forms and features, offering students the analytical tools needed to navigate the current complex geopolitical landscape. The course draws on different disciplines—including IR, political geography, European studies, border studies, and international law—to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concept of the ‘border’. The programme is intensive and requires the full commitment of enrolled students. Students are expected to read the material listed in the syllabus before class, as directed by the professor. No fixed schedule is provided, as the class schedule may vary according to teaching needs.

Readings/Bibliography

Readings are available to Students on VIRTUALE or online. Readings and books are also provided by or available at the Biblioteca R. Ruffilli.

Topics will foresee different in-class activities, to be explained in class.

 

BORDERS

Course presentation. Talking of borders

MacMillan, J., & Linklater, A. (Eds.) (1995). Boundaries In Question: New Directions In International Relations. Bloomsbury, Introduction and Ch 2.

Paasi, A. (1998). Boundaries as social processes: Territoriality in the world of flows. Geopolitics, 3(1), 69–88.

 

Redrawing borders

Agnew, J. (1994). The territorial trap: The geographical assumptions of international relations theory. Review of International Political Economy, 1(1), 53–80.

Parker, N., & Vaughan-Williams, N. (2012). Critical border studies: Broadening and deepening the "lines in the sand" agenda. Geopolitics, 17(4), 727–733.

Simmons, B. A. (2019). Border rules. International Studies Review, 21(2), 256–283.

Andreas, P. (2003). Redrawing the line: Borders and security in the twenty-first century. International Security, 28(2), 78–111.

Seminar: Professor Christopher Hill (University of Cambridge)

 

Geopolitics and borders

Dodds, K. (2007), Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch 1, 2.

Tuathail, G. Ó. (1996), Critical Geopolitics, London: Routledge. Chapter 1 “Geopolitics” 16-43 and Chapter 5 “Critical geopolitics”, 44-57.

Immerwahr, D. (2022, November 10). Are we really prisoners of geography? The Guardian.

Newman, D. (1998). Geopolitics renaissant: Territory, sovereignty and the world political map. Geopolitics, 3(1), 1–16.

 

The Liberal Order and borders

Goff, P. M. (2000). Invisible borders: Economic liberalization and national identity. International Studies Quarterly, 44(4), 533–562.

Simmons, B. A., & Goemans, H. E. (2021). Built on borders: Tensions with the institutional liberalism that left them behind. International Organization, 75(2), 387–410.

Hathaway, O. A., & Shapiro, S. J. (2025, June 24). Might unmakes right. Foreign Affairs.

Joppke, C. (2024). Neoliberal nationalism and immigration policy. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(7), 1657–1676.

Seminar: Dr. Elisa Piras (EURAC)

Seminar: Prof. Carmelo Danisi (UNIBO)

Seminar: Prof. Sonia Lucarelli (UNIBO)

Suggested reading

Agnew, J., Checkel, J. T., Deudney, D., & Mitzen, J. (2017). Symposium on Stefano Guzzini’s (ed.) The return of geopolitics in Europe? Social mechanisms and foreign policy identity crises, Cooperation and Conflict, 52(3), 399–422.

 

BORDERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The shifting borders of the EU

Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2019). Grand theories of European integration in the twenty-first century. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(8), 1113–1133.

Bellamy, R., Lacey, J., & Nicolaïdis, K. (2017). European boundaries in question? Journal of European Integration, 39(5), 483–498.

Zielonka, J. (2017). The remaking of the EU’s borders and the images of European architecture. Journal of European Integration, 39(5), 641–656.

Della Sala, V. (2017). Homeland security: Territorial myths and ontological security in the European Union. Journal of European Integration, 39(5), 545–558.

Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2024). Where should Europe end? Constructing the eastern frontier. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 62(S1), 17–37.

 

A geopolitical EU in the making?

Browning, C. S. (2018). Geostrategies, geopolitics and ontological security in the eastern neighbourhood: The European Union and the ‘new Cold War’. Political Geography, 62, 106–115.

Tonra, B. (2026). The Union’s Westphalian mirage: Geopolitics and EU foreign policy. European Politics and Society, 27(4), 630–640.

Seminar: Prof. Francesco Strazzari (Sant’Anna Pisa)

 

Schengen: from the erasing to the return of borders

Ceccorulli, M. (2025). Schengen bittersweet anniversary: EU integration and the persistence of internal border controls. Journal of European Integration, 47(4), 621–627.

Paoli, S. (2015). The Schengen Agreements and their impact on Euro-Mediterranean relations: The case of Italy and the Maghreb. Journal of European Integration History, 21(1), 125–145.

Votoupalová, M. (2020). Schengen cooperation: What scholars make of it. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 35(3), 403–423.

Suggested material

Paoli, S., & Hilpert, I. (n.d.). Schengen: A Europe without borders? [Online exhibition]. Europeana. Available at: Schengen: a Europe without borders? | Europeana [https://www.europeana.eu/it/exhibitions/schengen-a-europe-without-borders]

 

BORDER DYNAMICS

War, the global order, borders and their effects

Abramson, S. F., & Carter, D. B. (2016). The historical origins of territorial disputes. American Political Science Review, 110(4), 675–698.

Adamson, F. B., & Han, E. (2024). Diasporic geopolitics, rising powers, and the future of international order. Review of International Studies, 50(3), 476–493.

Hurrell, A. (2011). Refugees, international society, and global order. In A. Betts & G. Loescher (Eds.), Refugees in international relations. Oxford University Press.

Seminar: Prof. Carlo Frappi (Ca’ Foscari)

 

Barriers, technology and borders control

Hassner, R. E., & Wittenberg, J. (2015). Barriers to entry: Who builds fortified boundaries and why? International Security, 40(1), 157–190.

Martins, B. O., & Jumbert, M. G. (2022). EU border technologies and the co-production of security ‘problems’ and ‘solutions.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(6), 1430–1447.

Students’ research and presentation of borders’ techniques (TBC)

Suggested reading

Brown, W. (2017). Walled states, waning sovereignty (2nd paperback ed.). Zone Books.

Teaching methods

Classes, seminars, class-activities, debates

Assessment methods

Attending Students

Attendance is highly recommended, as graded activities are undertaken during the Course

- Participation 25% (1. class attendance, 2. active participation. 3. Depending on the number of Students, oral presentation)

- Comment of/questions about class Special Activities (Seminars et. al) (25%). More details in Class.

- Final written exam (50%). More details in class.

 

Non-Attending Students

The examination is oral.

The oral examination comprises:

1. All readings of the syllabus
2. A mongraph among: Longo, M. (2017). The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen after 9/11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press or Zaiotti, R. (2011). Culture of Border Control: Schengen & Evolution of European Frontiers, Chicago University Press.

Teaching tools

Powepoints, articles, videos, movies projection

Office hours

See the website of Michela Ceccorulli