The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the politics of closed borders and deterrence that has been enforced since the Schengen Agreement 1985 but which has proliferated in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ by establishing a dystopic landscape of border controls and violence. In the first section, I argue that various exceptional externalization border policies and practices have been enforced (at EU, national and local levels) as a response to the 2015 refugee crisis. Externalization policies and practices target people who are en route to Europe by immobilizing or intercepting them in non-EU countries and, therefore, pre-emptively deterring them and preventing them from reaching Europe. In the second section, I argue that although externalization is justified, legitimized and enforced allegedly to alleviate human suffering, prevent border deaths and protect border crossers’ from the smuggling and trafficking networks, externalization made border crossings and transit routes more securitized, perilous, expensive and dependent on smugglers and traffickers. In the third section, I focus on the internalization of border policies and practices that target people who manage to reach Greece and Europe (alive). The section examines the operationalization of the Greek Aegean Islands as filtering, screening and deportation mechanisms. I deploy the metaphor of Lesvos as a ‘prison island’ wherein deterrence is actively materialized.