Bordering Borderscapes: Australia’s Use of Humanitarian Aid and Border Security Support to Immobilise Asylum Seekers

This article documents Australia’s use of border security support and humanitarian aid as border externalisations immobilising asylum seekers as far from Australia as possible. The Australian Government frames border securitisation through regionalism, as an effort to achieve a “regional solution” to asylum seeking irregular migration. Correspondingly, scholars have documented Australia’s externalisations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. However, Australia’s efforts are not regionally circumscribed and this article analyses the spatial and temporal flexibility of Australia’s border externalisations; Australia’s strategy of targeting borderscapes of asylum seeking as they emerge and change. In doing so, the article examines how the Australian Government has assembled externalisations in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Australia’s use of humanitarian aid to make places housing asylum seekers more hospitable, yet confining, to the displaced is detailed. Also analysed is Australia’s border security support to source countries and countries of first asylum to immobilise asylum seekers. The article demonstrates that Australia has sought to manifest not only a territorial buffer zone in Southeast Asia, but use border externalisations in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa to secure places and displaced populations. This is argued to be a preventative strategy of risk management designed to preempt future asylum geographies and forge extraterritorial migration control.     

Theory of the / : The Suture and Critical Border Studies

Borders are crucial sites of political and spatial contestation: and in an attempt to evade the lamentation for an ideal model of a single line or the empty insistence of the dominance of that line, this article argues that the trope of the suture better captures the dual world-creating functions of the border. By examining the critical border theories of Agamben, Walker, and Galli, the suture better focuses analytical attention towards the role of borders in the creation of both sovereign states and the system of sovereign states.     

Euro-Crafting at Border Zones: The Case of the Greco-Turkish Border and the Question of a European Union ‘Beyond the State’

The European Union is often conceptualised as an entity that is profoundly different from that of the modern state. Through a reading of the recent humanitarian crisis precipitated by large-scale migration into Greece, the paper challenges the understanding that the crafting of the European Union (‘Euro-crafting’) is qualitatively different from the crafting of the modern state. Conceptually, the paper proposes that Euro-crafting should be thought through in relation to practices of statecraft, instead of a priori postulated as qualitatively different from such practices. Putting such an understanding of Euro-crafting to work, the paper explores the recent humanitarian crisis precipitated by large-scale migration into Greece and demonstrates how practices of Euro-crafting mirror the major desire-driven practices of modern statecraft; practices of ordering, bordering, and identification.     

Europe,the Green Line and the Issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Border: Closing the Gap between Discourse and Practice?

The article analyses how the Europeans (meaning European states and the EC/EU) have progressively turned a discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian border into a foreign policy practice. While much of the literature highlights the existence of a ‘gap between discourse and practice’ when it comes to Europeans’ foreign policy stance towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, we argue that the gap is dynamic and has changed across time. In the absence of an internationally and locally recognised border between Israel and Palestine, the Europeans have aimed at constructing one on the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line. They have done so in stages, by first formulating a discursive practice about the need for a border, then establishing economic practices in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and most recently practicing a legal frame of reference for relations with Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) based on the Green Line. The outcome is that, for what concerns European countries and EU legislation, the Green Line has been increasingly taken as the Israeli-Palestinian border. However, gaps never fully close and more contemporary events seem in fact to point to a re-opening of the gap, as the article explores.     

Border Bargains and the “New” Sovereignty: Canada-US Border Policies from 2001 to 2005 in Perspective

From 2001 to 2005 Canada and the US dramatically altered the way each country views its border. In response to the attacks on New York City and Washington DC, Canada and the US entered into three important partnerships: the Smart Borders Agreement (SBA), the Container Security Initiative (CSI), and the Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP). These arrangements will be conceptualised here as “tacit bargains” whereby Canada provided the US with security in hope of renewed trust and economic accessibility. These “tacit bargains” required a concession of traditional state sovereignty so that stable and predictable relations between both countries could continue. While this process is ostensibly a violation of state sovereignty, the argument presented here is that these three “tacit bargains” represent a transition of “old” sovereignty to “new” sovereignty.     

“The End of Autocracy”: Analysing Representations of the Austro-Hungarian Dissolution as the Foundation of US Hegemonic Discourse

This paper investigates the manner in which the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was represented to the US public using a qualitative content analysis of articles from three major US newspapers in October and November, 1918. Against a geopolitical backdrop of the increasing global presence of the United States and assertion of its influence in international affairs, the analysis shows that three key themes were emphasised in the popular US political narratives at the end of World War I: national self-determination, legitimacy of governance, and the role of Eastern European diasporas and representatives in the United States. Throughout the essay, these themes are connected to key discussions of US hegemony in political geography. The critical geopolitics approach highlights how the articles signposted boundary markers of identity at a crucial, transitional point in US history, helping to crystallise an American sense of ‘Self’ increasingly based upon world leadership, and sending compelling messages about the expected behaviours of nations, states, and individuals. This work concludes that the stage was set early in the twentieth century for a phase of US global intellectual and moral leadership, and that the ascendance of US hegemony globally was accompanied by an active media project at home which sought to redefine Americans' collective sense of themselves as vanguards of liberal democratic values in a world of outdated and undemocratic regimes.     

“Welcome to Tijuana”: Popular Music on the US–Mexico Border

Popular music has not yet been widely considered by popular geopolitics practitioners. This paper develops such a perspective, using the US–Mexico border as a case study. In the area, the classic corrido and the more recent narcocorridos are flourishing. Their lyrics, exalting the deeds of border trespassers, usually represent the border as a superimposed boundary. Around the border, other more hybrid kinds of music stand for a very mixed borderland. The border is also portrayed in Anglo songs, referring to the ‘South of the border’ experience. In these, depiction leaves room for a different perception, since the border is represented as an open frontier, easy to cross, to find an abundance of girls and alcohol on the other side. Popular music can also offer a metaphorical representation of the US–Mexico border, transforming it from a local space to the symbol of all global power asymmetries, as in Manu Chao’s songs.     

Loss of control: legislature changes and the state–local relationship

There are a variety of methods that state legislatures can use to pass legislation which relates to municipalities. This paper explores why, how and when states changed their constitutions from allowing special legislation for municipalities to requiring general laws which would apply to all municipalities. Historians have put forward several explanations for why special legislation was harder to maintain as the nineteenth century progressed. A new way of framing the story is presented here by considering how the passage of special legislation was maintained through a logroll; legislators formed a coalition to vote on each other’s local legislation. As the size of the legislature expanded and the composition of the legislature changed, it may have been harder for legislators to maintain a coalition in order to logroll each other’s proposed local legislation. The previous theories along with the new one presented here are empirically tested. Evidence suggests a link between the size of the state legislature and the probability of instituting general legislation for municipalities, indicating that one motivation for adopting general laws was the dissolution of a stable logroll.     

Regime changes and the impact of currency depreciations: the case of Spanish–US industry trade

Over the past half century, Western Europe has been part of varying currency regimes. Yet, whether under Bretton Woods, the European Monetary System, or the Euro, exchange-rate fluctuations have had an influence on these countries’ trade flows with the United States at the national and the industry level. This study looks at the case of Spain, examining the role of real exchange-rate fluctuations on trade with the United States for 74 industries. We find that the trade balances of only 40 industries are cointegrated with their macroeconomic determinants, but that 26 of these respond positively in the long run to a real depreciation. While industry characteristics do not seem to explain which industries are more likely to do this, we find that a relatively large share of industries in the Machinery sector see their trade balances improve after a depreciation.     

Asset Prices and the Financial Crisis of 2007–09: An Overview of Theories and Policies

The financial crisis of 2007–09 has led to a rethinking of the role of monetary and financial regulatory policy. It has also called into question the benefits of financial innovation and monetary policy that focuses solely on inflation and the output gap. This paper discusses financial instabilities in general, the recent financial crisis as well as the appropriate role of monetary and financial regulatory policy in dealing with asset bubbles. The paper concludes by evaluating appropriate policies to reduce the economic impact of future financial crises.     

Asset Prices and the Financial Crisis of 2007–09: An Overview of Theories and Policies

The financial crisis of 2007–09 has led to a rethinking of the role of monetary and financial regulatory policy. It has also called into question the benefits of financial innovation and monetary policy that focuses solely on inflation and the output gap. This paper discusses financial instabilities in general, the recent financial crisis as well as the appropriate role of monetary and financial regulatory policy in dealing with asset bubbles. The paper concludes by evaluating appropriate policies to reduce the economic impact of future financial crises.     

A generalization of the Cairns–Krautkraemer model and the optimality of the mining rule

There exists a rule of thumb of mines, which decides how the cut-off grade (the lowest grade of extracted ore) should change in response to a change in the price of the metal. It requires that the cut-off grade should decrease (increase) when the present value price of metal increases (decreases). In this paper, the optimality of the rule will be examined by generalizing the Cairns–Krautkraemer model under the perfect foresight assumption.     

Fiscal capacity and the risk of sovereign debt after the Glorious Revolution: A reinterpretation of the North–Weingast hypothesis

Several explanations have been given to account for the fact that, in contrast to the claim made by North and Weingast (1989), the decline in interest rates on British sovereign debt did not occur until several years after the Glorious Revolution in 1688. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the decline in the risk premium on Britain's sovereign debt was due to the significant increase in excise duties in the early part of the eighteenth century. This increase was possible for two reasons. On the one hand, with the Glorious Revolution, parliament no longer had reason to fear that the King would strengthen his political power due to the availability of more fiscal revenue. On the other hand, the new excise taxes were borne mostly by the poor, that is a social class not represented in parliament. The delay in reducing the interest rate on British sovereign debt, following the Glorious Revolution, was, therefore, due to the length of time needed to increase and improve the fiscal bureaucracy responsible for the collection of excise duties.     

Economic class and the distribution of income: a time-series analysis of the UK economy, 1955–2010

This paper contributes to our understanding of the determinants and dynamics of surplus-value using quarterly UK data, 1955–2010, and the Johansen (1988 Johansen, S. 1988. Statistical analysis of cointegrated vectors. Journal of Economic Dynamic and Control, 12: 231–54. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1991 Johansen, S. 1991. Estimation and hypothesis of cointegration vectors in Gaussian vector autoregressive models. Econometrica, 59: 1551–80. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) cointegration and vector error correction model (VECM). A model is introduced to define this Marxian concept, before we explain distribution, paying attention to three forces that are traditionally seen as drivers of power in this struggle: (i) working class militancy; (ii) the size of the ‘reserve army’ of the unemployed; and (iii) political party. Our results demonstrate the ongoing relevance of Marxian economics in providing an alternative, robust and significant explanation of distribution in the post-war UK economy.     

The price of imports and TFP: Application to the Korean crisis of 1997–1998

This paper studies the effects of import-price shocks on measured output and productivity in a standard small open economy model and quantifies such effects in the case of the Korean crisis of 1997–1998. I argue that it is the price of imported goods relative to the price of domestic goods but not the terms of trade that determine measured output and productivity. The simulated results show that shocks to the price of imports account for about half of the output deviation (from trend), one third of the TFP deviation and two thirds of the labor deviation in 1998. For the quantitative results, the extent to which the usage of imported goods is distorted is critical and substantially larger than tariffs because of significantly sizable non-tariff distortions.     

Convergence of the Aumann–Davis–Maschler and Geanakoplos bargaining sets

Summary. Geanakoplos [17] defined a notion of bargaining set, and proved that his bargaining set is approximately competitive in large finite transferable utility (TU) exchange economies with smooth preferences. Shapley and Shubik [26] showed that the Aumann–Davis–Maschler bargaining set is approximately competitive in replica sequences of TU exchange economies with smooth preferences. We extend Geanakoplos result to nontransferable utility (NTU) exchange economies without smooth preferences, and we extend the Shapley and Shubik result to non-replica sequences of NTU exchange economies with smooth preferences.Received: November 11, 1996This revised version was published online in February 2005 with corrections to the cover date.     

Effective rates of protection and the Fordney–McCumber and Smoot–Hawley Tariff Acts

This study presents the first calcualtions of effective rates of protection for 1920, 1923 and the first and second half of 1930 for the United States economy disaggregated to 39 sectors. The calculated changes in the effective on the United States economy of the Emergency and Fordney–McCumber tariff acts of 1921 and 1922 and of the Smooth–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

The results suggest that the Emergency and Fordney–McCumber tariff acts resulted in a much larger increase in the level of protection given to American industry than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Further, the results indicate that Smoot-Hawley had a small effect on the level of protection.