Can a state exclude people in the name of the common good? What gives legitimacy to definitions of borders and belonging? In this work of political theory, B. Boudou argues for a pragmatic, democratic and shifting approach to borders: only shared interests can define a community.
David Miller takes a clear stance on immigration: states have the right to close their borders, but also, to a certain extent, the duty to welcome refugees. His arguments, however, are not entirely convincing.
How can a state expect its borders to be respected and at the same time deny the existence of borders to spread revolution? Historian Sabine Dullin’s unique reconstruction of Soviet political imagination gives provocative answers to this apparent paradox. Her new way of looking at frontiers also has tremendous relevance to explain Russia’s border politics of today.
The tragedy of Lampedusa has shed a harsh light on the effects of border control, which Europe is outsourcing and privatising in order to make responsibilities more opaque and sustain a market of fear. Claire Rodier reveals the ideological and economic implications of this process, and its perverse effects.
