Globalization and Border Securitization in International Discourse

Abstract

International borders have become a growing concern for international security. Moreover, they appear to be associated with a growing set of international concerns arising from transnational nonstate violence and criminality. Because international relations theorists have been concerned primarily with systemic polarity, globalization and interstate territorial disputes, IR scholars are missing a central change in global security orientation toward a perceived need for border control. We argue that global structural shifts that heighten uncertainty about the status of nation states themselves help to account for growing border anxiety. First, we show that there is indeed a shifting empirical reality in need of explanation: though interstate border disputes have declined, border concerns are on the rise. Second, we argue structural shifts – primarily processes of globalization and human mobility – have exposed a growing sense of threat surrounding international borders. At least in the United Nations, we show that border-related discourse has become more frequent, decentralized, localized, negative, and focused on non-state threats since the 1990s, particularly among wealthier and more democratic states. Our research highlights both the persistent, historical importance of non-state challenges to national and international security, and their growing importance in a shifting and uncertain political world.