North American Integration  and the Significance of Borders

 

Definitions:

Boundary                                  

 

 

Border              

 

 

Frontier

 

 

The state is responsible for “boundary constitution and maintenance, in which sovereignty operates as a claim to authority and responsibility” within its boundaries (Cohen, 2001)

 

Assumptions behind (political) boundaries:

Territorial control

 

Government

 

Identity building

 

Permeability

 

Why might these assumptions be problematic?

 

 
‘Alternative’ definitions of borders, boundaries

 

cultural, social, gendered, and sexual

 

Not a strictly spatial interpretation but an interpersonal one.

 

On what do people base their identity? Are cultural boundaries any more or less significant than political ones in shaping a person’s identity?

 

Bordering

 

 

Borderlands


Simplest definition: those areas nearest to the border that are influenced by the presence of the border

 

Alternative, more complex definitions

McKinsey and Konrad (1989)

 

 

Martinez (1994)

 

 

Douglass (1998)

 

 

Borderland Dynamics

 

  1. power

 

  1. identify

 

  1. distinct border culture?

 

  1. autonomy

 

  1. integration

 

 

#1 (Power): Borderland Models

 

Symmetrical/ Asymmetrical

 

 

Martinez (1994):

v      Alienated

 

v      Coexistent

 

v      Interdependent

 

v      Integrated

 

#2, #3: Borderlands Identity and Culture

 

Culture, def.

 

A shared set of values, beliefs, institutions, and practices

 

Culture is also a process

 

 

Argument: Thus, there is no single culture, per se, but a constant renegotiation of those collective ideas that define us individually and as a group.

 

 

#4: Borderland autonomy

What groups are important players/ stakeholders within the borderland? At what scale?

 

v      International?

 

 

v      National?

 

 

v      Regional/ Sub-national?

 

 

v      Local?

 

 

#5: Integration

 

Hoberg (2000) developed a ‘continuum for integration’

 

Unrelated

Fully integrated

Economic

No international exchanges

Common currency, customs union; economic transactions a function of size and distance (no border effect

Political

Autonomous nation-states; distinctive policies reflecting domestic conditions

All relevant decision-making authority transferred to supranational authority; uniform policies

Cultural

Distinctive national values

Identical values resulting from assimilation or some other form of external influence

 

Movements toward North American integration

 

Reciprocity Agreement, 1854-1866; informal agreement 1911-1920

 

Protectionism

 

The Move toward Global—and Continental—Free Trade

 

Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)--1949

 

European integration beginning in 1950s

 

v      Auto Pact (1965)

 

 

neo-liberal economic policies

 

 

v      CUSTA—Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (1989)

 

 

v      NAFTA—North American Free Trade Agreement (1993)

 

Measuring the effects of free trade between US, Canada

  • Has increased total trade, but not total integration

 

  • brain drain

 

  • foreign direct investment

 

  • Bias remains in trade

 

  • Certain provinces, states have benefited more from free trade than others

 

  • employment

 

 

 

Degrees of integration: Comparing North America and the EU

 

US-Mexico

US-Canada

Western EU’s internal boundaries

 

  1. What types of borderland relationships, according to Martinez’s model, would best illustrate each of these boundary relationships?
  2. To what degree are these different borderland relationships integrated?
  3. How might the borderlands in each of these situations be considered distinct? Are they remote from the core?
  4. Of the different assumptions posed in the beginning, which are less true than others?
  5. Who has more successfully integrated and why?
  6. Do boundaries matter?
  7. Is the Nexus generation more unified that separate?