Border political theory and Human Mobility

Abstract

The growing human mobility is having a direct impact on a political category that has been usually taken for granted in democratic liberal theories: the category of border.

Political Theory has not paid enough attention to the concept of ‘border’. This “silence” becomes highly relevant, since it is by discussing the issue of borders that one can detect most of the incoherencies of the Liberal Political Theory. It is also surprising to see that the notion is a taken-for-granted concept in the current debates on immigration. Based on these premises, the goal of this article is to discuss the grounds for a Political Theory on Borders (PTB). As a first step, I identify those analytical distinctions that allow us to provide a solid base for this line of research. Thus, as an introductory section (section 1), I shall highlight the reasons to initiate this debate and will analyze the existing links around the category of border and its conceptual uses, taking into account its historical dimension. Section 2 will tackle the functional aspects of this approach as a framework that will legitimize discourses and policies, conceptions and political positions. Section 3 will concentrate on the issue of border as a political category, while section 4 will focus on the most relevant theoretical approaches on borders. Section 5 will go through the arguments that justify the need to control human mobility. Finally (section 6), I shall conclude by pointing out the most relevant aspects needed to build the foundations for a Political Theory on Borders.