The Changing Significance of European Borders

The starting point of this article is that the nature and functions of borders have been changing dramatically in Europe since the end of the cold war. The article aims to outline and analyse some of the key dimensions of this change. The article provides some very interesting insights into the debate on the nature of borders by delineating four different conceptual understandings of borders: borders as barriers, bridges, resources and symbols of identity.

The overview of European border policies is structured around these different conceptualisations of borders. The author points out that despite the abolition of borders as barriers within the union through the single market, the barrier thinking is still very much alive in the debate and policies concerning the external borders of the union. With regard to borders as bridges, O’Dowd highlights the proliferation of ’Euroregions’(regions with cross-border boards and secretariats addressing local social, economic and environmental problems) along the external eastern borders of the EU. Borders also serve as resources: they are places of economic, social and political opportunity for various actors and groups. This function is manifest at the new eastern borders of the union: mass of nationals of the outsider states travel back and forth the borders engaging in small-scale cross-border trade.

Finally, the author claims that borders in today’s Europe are not only symbols of identity in the traditional sense of exclusive sovereignty but also as symbols of cross-border identities: sustained cross-border cooperation often contributes to a shared we-feeling. All these four dimensions are present in the process of changing borders in Europe.

O’Dowd concludes that there are major ambiguities and tensions in border issues but what is important is how they are handled: whether border regimes are open and democratically accountable or whether they are closed and coercive.

O’Dowd, Liam. "The Changing Significance of European Borders." InNew Borders for a Changing Europe, edited by James Anderson, Liam O’Dowd and Thomas M. Wilson, 13-36. London: Frank Cass, 2003.