lo Squaderno (Dec 2011)
borderscapes of Imperial Europe. Space, law and politics at the european periphery
Abstract
The emergence of the European Union (EU) as transnational political actor is paralleled by a complex redefinition of Member States’ political boundaries along the new common external border. Many argued that the birth of the EU as a proper political actor is primarily exemplified by its external border control policy; others have seen the very creation of the Schengen space with its common external frontier as the political foundations of a new European Citizenship, built upon a new definition of belonging and otherness. The birth of the Schengen area of freedom, security and justice seems to replicate at the regional level the same geo-political dynamic which produced national spaces: a new political and economic trans-national unit is created by drawing a line which at the same time defines the rights of belonging. I believe this point of view is affected by a relevant degree of “methodological nationalism”, which prevents political and social theory from understanding how contem- porary patterns of European spatial government do not drive in the direction of classic State formation.
