Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications for National Borders

A core argument of this Essay is that the capability to make borderings has itself switched organizing logics: from institutionalizing the perimeter of a territory to multiplying transversal borderings cutting across that perimeter. This switch is partly linked to the types of scalar shifts in the operational space of a growing number of systems. To the more economic systems already mentioned above, let me add such diverse instances as the policing of the illegal drug trade, the war on terror, the judicial and political struggle to protect human rights, and the environmental effort to reorganize transnational economic sectors, including the fisheries examined in this Symposium. Each of these systems functions today as a globally scaled assemblage that includes subnational, national, and supranational components, ranging from varied laws to operational geographies.