Border Politics

This book, newly available in paperback, presents a distinctive theoretical approach to the problem of borders in the study of global politics. It turns from current debates about the presence or absence of borders between states to consider the possibility that the concept of the border of the state is being reconfigured in contemporary political life. The author uses critical resources found in poststructuralist thought to think in new ways about the relationship between borders, security and sovereign power, drawing on a range of thinkers including Agamben, Derrida and Foucault. He highlights the necessity of a more pluralized and radicalised view of what borders are and where they might be found and uses the problem of borders to critically explore the innovations and limits of poststructuralist scholarship.

Border Politics is a wonderfully ambitious book, which outlines alternative conceptualizations of the border while avoiding the cliched themes of geopolitical border studies... This is an agenda-setting book, both in terms of demonstrating how new and challenging ideas can be incorporated into border studies, and more importantly, in leading the way in thinking the problem of the border afresh in order to understand the diversity of bordering strategies which exist in world politics. -- ABS Book Awards 2011 Association for Borderlands Studies A significant contribution to debates about borders that deserves wide-spread attention. -- John Williams, University of Durham An urgently needed book. -- Yosef Lapid, New Mexico State University The study of international boundaries ... has evolved from a rather descriptive study at the intersection of the legal and the geographical fields into a dynamic and exponentially growing field of boundary making, bordering, and othering ... [Border Politics is a] strong contribution to these academic debates ... [It] provide[s] insightful points of departure for those aspiring to contribute to this exciting research agenda and formulate[s] thought-provoking puzzles and moral dilemmas for all of us. -- Virginie Mamadouh Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Border Politics is a wonderfully ambitious book, which outlines alternative conceptualizations of the border while avoiding the cliched themes of geopolitical border studies... This is an agenda-setting book, both in terms of demonstrating how new and challenging ideas can be incorporated into border studies, and more importantly, in leading the way in thinking the problem of the border afresh in order to understand the diversity of bordering strategies which exist in world politics. A significant contribution to debates about borders that deserves wide-spread attention. An urgently needed book. The study of international boundaries ... has evolved from a rather descriptive study at the intersection of the legal and the geographical fields into a dynamic and exponentially growing field of boundary making, bordering, and othering ... [Border Politics is a] strong contribution to these academic debates ... [It] provide[s] insightful points of departure for those aspiring to contribute to this exciting research agenda and formulate[s] thought-provoking puzzles and moral dilemmas for all of us.

Nick Vaughan-Williams is Associate Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick, UK. He is co-author of /Critical Security Studies: An Introduction/ (2010), and co-editor of /Critical Theorists and International Relations/ (2009) and /Terrorism and the Politics of Response/ (2008).