Bordering the Future


Book Description

The differences between the United States and Mexico may be immense, but their links—economic, political, and social—are profound, and growing stronger. In this incisive narrative, John Adams argues that Mexico, with which the United States shares a 1,951 mile border, is no sideshow but a pivotal component of American economic health and regional security. The primary theme that runs throughout this book is that Mexico has historically had, and will continue to e Drawing from the most current economic and demographic data and business examples, Adams demonstrates the depth and breadth of U.S.-Mexican relations, and their implications for American business and policymaking. In the process, he dispels popular myths about Mexico as an economic backwater or political distraction. The result is an authoritative and colorful account of our complex relationship with our neighbor to the south, and its broader implications for global growth and political stability. The border between the United States and Mexico runs for 1,951 miles. The differences between the two nations may be immense, but their links—economic, political, and social—are profound, and growing stronger. In this incisive narrative, John Adams argues that Mexico is no sideshow, but a pivotal component of American economic health and regional security. The primary theme that runs throughout the book is that Mexico—its domestic growth and industrial capacity, population pressures, energy needs, political dynamics, and strategic location—has historically had, and will continue to have, a tremendous impact on the United States. Drawing from the most current economic and demographic data and business examples, Adams demonstrates the depth and breadth of U.S.-Mexican relations and their implications for American business and policymaking. A unique aspect of the book is his analysis of the competition between Mexico and China for American resources for investment, trade, and economic development. Adams also dispels popular myths about Mexico as an economic backwater or political distraction. The result is an authoritative and colorful account of our complex relationship with our neighbor to the south—and its broader implications for global economic growth and political stability.




The New Border Wars


Book Description

An enlightening look at contemporary border tensions—from the Gaza Strip to the space race—by one of the world’s leading experts in geopolitics. Border expert Klaus Dodds journeys into the geopolitical clashes of tomorrow in an eye-opening tour of border walls both literal and figurative. In the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere, the tension inherent to trying to divide the world into separate parcels has not gone away. And with climate change shifting our natural borders, from mountains to glaciers to rivers, the question of how we live in a world that’s becoming warmer and wetter and growing in population looms large. With wide-ranging insight and provocative analysis, Dodds shows why we are more likely to see more walls, barriers, and securitization in our daily lives. The New Border Wars examines just what borders truly mean in the modern world: How are they built; what do they signify for citizens and governments; and how do they help us understand our political past and, most importantly, our diplomatic future?




Foresters, Borders, and Bark Beetles


Book Description

In Europe's last primeval forest, at Poland's easternmost border with Belarus, the deep past of ancient oaks, woodland bison, and thousands of species of insects and fungi collides with authoritarian and communist histories. Foresters, biologists, environmentalists, and locals project the ancient Białowieża Forest as a series of competing icons in struggles over memory, land, and economy, which are also struggles about whether to log or preserve the woodland; whether and how to celebrate the mixed ethnic Polish/Belarusian peasant past; and whether to align this eastern outpost with ultraright Polish political parties, neighboring Belarus, or the European Union. Eunice Blavascunas provides an intimate ethnographic account, gathered in more than 20 years of research, to untangle complex forest conflicts between protection and use. She looks at which pasts are celebrated, which fester, and which are altered in the tumultuous decades following the collapse of communism. Foresters, Borders, and Bark Beetles is a timely and fascinating work of cultural analysis and storytelling that textures its ethnographic reading of people with the agency of the forest itself and its bark beetle outbreaks, which threaten to alter the very composition of the forest in the age of the Anthropocene.




Rethinking Border Control for a Globalizing World


Book Description

Aims to provide a guide for peacemaking at the territorial borders of the nation state Employs an innovative 'preferred futures' methodology Will be of interest to students of border studies, migration studies, peace studies, critical security and IR




Expanding Boundaries


Book Description

This book challenges the common European notions about African migration to Europe and offers a holistic understanding of the current situation in Africa. It advocates a need to rethink Africa-Europe relations and view migration and borders as a resource rather than sources of a crisis. Migrant movement from Africa is often misunderstood and misrepresented as invasion caused by displacement due to poverty, violent conflict and environmental stress. To control this movement and preserve national identities, the EU and its various member states resort to closing borders as a way of reinforcing their migration policies. This book aims to dismantle this stereotypical view of migration from Africa by sharing cutting-edge research from the leading scholars in Africa and Europe. It refutes the flawed narratives that position Africa as a threat to the European societies, their economies and security, and encourages a nuanced understanding of the root causes as well as the socioeconomic factors that guide the migrants’ decision-making. With chapters written in a concise style, this book brings together the migration and border studies in an innovative way to delve into the broader societal impacts of both. It also serves to de-silence the African voices in order to offer fresh insights on African migration – a discourse dominated hitherto by the European perspective. This book constitutes a valuable resource for research scholars and students of Border Studies, Migration Studies, Conflict and Security Studies, and Development Studies seeking specialisation in these areas. Written in an accessible style, it will also appeal to a more general public interested in gaining a fuller perspective on the African reality. Chapter 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Past, Present and Future of a Language Border


Book Description

This volume revisits the issue of language contact and conflict in the Low Countries across space and time. The contributions deal with important sites of Germanic-Romance contact along the different language borders, covering languages such as French, Dutch, German, and Luxembourgish. This first monograph in English on the topic broadens our understanding of current-day issues by integrating a historical perspective, showing how language contact and conflict operated from the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, the 18th and 19th centuries, and into the 20th and 21st centuries.




Planning the Future of Cross Border Families


Book Description

This book is built upon the outcomes of the EUFam's Project, financially supported by the EU Civil Justice Programme and led by the University of Milan. Also involved are the Universities of Heidelberg, Osijek, Valencia and Verona, the MPI in Luxembourg, the Italian and Spanish Family Lawyers Associations and training academies for judges in Italy and Croatia. The book seeks to offer an exhaustive overview of the regulatory framework of private international law in family and succession matters. The book addresses current features of the Brussels IIa, Rome III, Maintenance and Succession Regulations, the 2007 Hague Protocol, the 2007 Hague Recovery Convention and new Regulations on Property Regimes. The contributions are authored by more than 30 experts in cross-border family and succession matters. They introduce social and cultural issues of cross-border families, set up the scope of all EU family and succession regulations, examine rules on jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition and enforcement regimes and focus on the current problems of EU family and succession law (lis pendens in third States, forum necessitatis, Brexit and interactions with other legal instruments). The book also contains national reports from 6 Member States and annexes of interest for both legal scholars and practitioners (policy guidelines, model clauses and protocols).




The Future of Cross-Border Insolvency


Book Description

A fresh and insightful guide to post-financial crisis cross-border insolvency, this book interrogates the current regime and sets out a framework for improving its future. In recent decades, and especially since the global financial crisis, a number of important initiatives have focused on developing the mechanisms for managing the insolvency of multinational enterprises and financial institutions. The book considers the effectiveness of the current system and identifies the gaps that could be bridged by adopting certain strategies and tools, to improve the system further. The book first discusses the theoretical debate regarding cross-border insolvency and surveys the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing method-modified universalism in its application to both commercial entities and financial institutions, consequently identifying a single set of emerging norms. The book argues that adhering to these norms more robustly would enhance global welfare and produce the best outcomes for businesses and institutions. By drawing upon sources from international law as well as behavioural and economic theory, the book offers a blueprint for meeting the demands of future cross-border insolvencies. It considers how to translate modified universalism into binding international law and how to choose the right instrument for cross-border insolvency as well as the impact that instrument design has on decisions and choices. It explores how to encourage compliance and proposes mechanisms that could potentially overcome, or at least take into account, behavioural biases in decision-making.




A Future without Borders? Theories and practices of cosmopolitan peacebuilding


Book Description

A Future without Borders (FWB) offers an explanation of why the recent, but by now distant, movements of the “Occupy Wall Street” activists have repeated themselves across the globe. The book demonstrates some of the processes inherent to an adapting cosmopolitanism (a call for civility, a call for Justice, a call for a collective responsibility or accountability) that is not individualistic in nature. Until recently, the statal/national problems understood as politico-economic failures were conceived as isolated problems, failures of statal institutions that are particular to certain countries. FWB contests the Westphalian logic that explains these circumstances, as national failures and argues instead that the conditions be assessed as extensions of the global economic and ideological failures that they surely are. Contributors are: Anton Allahar, Arnold Farr, Andrew Fiala, Pierre-André Gagnon, Bill Gay, Kurtis Hagen, Linden F. Lewis, Tracey Nicholls, Richard T. Peterson, Jorge Rodriguez, Eddy M. Souffrant, and Hilbourne A. Watson.




Myanmar’s Resistance and the Future of Border Trade: Challenges and Opportunities


Book Description

Since the start of Operation 1027, Myanmar’s resistance groups have gained control over large parts of key overland trade routes and a number of important border crossings, fundamentally changing the realities in the control of border trade. Despite these losses, the State Administration Council (SAC) retains control-of-trade-related institutions that are vital for accessing an international trading system characterized by state-to-state interactions—giving them significant influence over trade even if they do not control trade routes and border crossings. International precedents from territories such as Palestine, Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia show that non-state actors face significant challenges engaging in trade, and are vulnerable to frequent changes in trading arrangements. Perhaps the most important factor shaping trade in these territories is the state of their relationship with either the state of which they are nominally a part, or a neighbouring state. Thailand allows small-scale trade and limited movement of people through “checkpoints for border trade”, which exist outside the formal system and are unilaterally established by Thailand. These checkpoints represent an alternative opportunity to reshape border trade. If Myanmar’s resistance hopes to transform trade from a revenue source to a meaningful strength, their prospects are best if they collaborate and develop a status-neutral plan (e.g., not requiring diplomatic recognition nor denying recognition to the SAC) for trading arrangements with neighbours, and enhance dialogue with them about this plan.