Modelling Cross-Border Integration: The Role of Borders as a Resource

Cross-border integration is a multifaceted as well as contextually contingent process. While various conceptualisations have been developed, the theoretical foundations of the concept appear insufficient in order to grasp the very significance of such a process of cross-border regionalism. In order to help make sense of the diversity of configurations observed, this article seeks to deconstruct the concept according to the role played by the border as a resource and to develop a theoretical framework based on two contrasted models of cross-border integration. The underlying hypothesis is that cross-border integration does not derive from the mere opening of national borders that it supposedly helps at the same time to remove, but stems from the strategic behaviour of actors who actively mobilise borders as resources. The first model, called ‘geo-economic’, is mainly based on the mobilisation of the border as a differential benefit and aims to generate value out of asymmetric cross-border interactions. In doing so, this process of functional integration is likely to increase cross-border socio-economic disparities and leads to cooperation oriented towards instrumental purposes such as increasing the economic utility of the border or regulating negative externalities. The second model, called ‘territorial project’, emphasises the border resources that involve a convergence of both sides of a border, either through a process of hybridisation/innovation or via the territorial and symbolic recognition borders entail. In this process of place-making that transcends the border, mutual understanding and trust between the actors is seen to be key and the willingness to cooperate essential. Conceived as ideal-types, the two models of cross-border integration are contrasted and to some extent contradictory. They are however not mutually exclusive and different kinds of combinations are examined based on concrete examples.