Pre-Mid Assignment 1

Topic:

In a time of internet communication and globalization in commerce and personal

mobility, do borders still matter? Do they still exist? Are new borders emerging?
Around who or where? Take a position around the contradiction between
increasing trade and globalization with the entrenchment and recent fascinations
with borders and nationalist sovereignty.

Submitted to: Ma’am Asma Ali

Submitted by: Roshaane Gul

Course title: Political Geography

Major: Economics

Semester 5

Submission’s date: September 14, 2021

Introduction:

“…globalization means the onset of the borderless world…”

(Kenichi Ohmae)
The geographical demarcation of a sovereign nation is border. Nations, organizations and people
across the globe respect and acknowledge borders. The responsibility of the government of the
nation also includes to defend the borders from external enemies and to protect the citizens.
Defense of the borders is considered as of prime significance for the rulers, since the early days
of human society. Usually, the rulers of the nations have the defense forces in the form of armies,
navies and air forces to defend the borders. That concept has been changed over the time.
Borders have been relaxed, and becoming more and more irrelevant. Borders are losing their
conventional roles of the past due to the increase in trade and the propagation of businesses.
With the increasing volume of trade, the world is becoming flatter and also shrinking in terms of
travel time and communications, while at the same time it is expanding in terms of trades and
commerce. Though globalization has not been completely obvious for all the nations, it has
shown its effect in last two and half decades. Now, It is playing crucial roles in almost every
facet of human lives across the world, even affecting the choice of foods, clothes, life-styles,
cultural habits and preferences.
Changing role of borders:
The legitimacy of a regime or the control of a governing system is delineated in the geography
since the early days of human society. There are many different forms of demarcation such as the
strong unconquerable walls, directly human guarded delineation lines, and natural boundaries
(i.e., rivers, seas, oceans, mountains etc.). This facilitates the rulers to recognize their positions
and to plan the future steps. It was a common practice to expand the borders. The powerful rulers
used to expand their borders by attacking and defeating the neighboring states while the weak
ones were making planned defense mechanisms. Some of such examples are the Great Wall of
China and the hundreds of military forts built around the world for the protection from the
invaders. The epic of Troy as written by Homer clearly depicts the power of defense using sturdy
and invincible borders. It was the primary roles of the borders to recognize and respect each
other. However, it became the cause of disagreement in numerous situations in the past and that
trend is still going on in the modern world.
Generally, the present role of border is very different than in the past. Now–a-days, except a few
disputed ones, the borders are extensively esteemed around the world. On one hand the borders
are performing the roles of a national delineation, and on the other hand they also hinder the
cross-border aspects such as trade, commerce and transportation. These obstructions of the
border frameworks are solved by several nations around the world to assist the economy, trade
and the human rights. The economic and trade borders are been relaxed in many parts of the
world in the post-cold war era, that results in both the development of trade and mutual
understanding of the nations. There are several examples of borders that are losing their
conventional irrelevance across the world. Initiating from the EU to NAFTA to ASEAN, all
these groups of nations have lessen their border limitations to different extents to assist their
mutual trade and benefits. Several other groups are the African Union and SAARC following
this trend of lessening limitations. The borders are losing their historical significance gradually,
in these trade facilitation frameworks. The free trade across the globe without the border
restrictions is now generally identified as globalization. In reality, there are several aspects of
globalization, from which the cross-border trades and growth of the economy beyond a nation’s
own territory are the prime reasons. Its extent was not widespread, though there was international
trade between different nations in the past. Thus the actual globalization started just about 25
years ago, when the border limitations were relaxed to considerably low levels.
The notion of globalization in fact developed in the west in late eighties of the 20th century,
when after cold war the nations in Europe and elsewhere relaxed their borders for trade,
economy and human liberty. Luckily, the Internet initiated to propagate publicly around the same
time and added the true sense to globalization by facilitating not only to connect the people
across the borders but also assisting the businesses. Global economy started growing faster than
before with the help of technology and appropriate frameworks, which were supported by the
democratically elected governments and economy took a higher concern over politics and
religion. It supported the liberty and prosperity of people which they wanted and deserved.
Leaders were compassionate in encouraging the globalization in bulk of the cases. Where, they
did not want, they were either overthrown (as in Romania in 1989), or they secretly adopted the
system that did it without any declaration (as in case of China which follows a capitalistic market
based economy with a communist regime).
Globalization is a very famous term in economics, management, business studies, political
science and several other disciplines. Robertson states that
“Globalization as a concept refers to both the compression of the world and the intensification
of consciousness of the world as a whole”.
Globalization is a concept that the world is getting smaller because of progress in technology
and the increased uses of spatial reducing mediums. The theory of globalization is not innovative
and in fact developed since the first established trade routes. All these type of ideas origins more
recently due the acceleration in advancement of technology. Friedman provides clear
explanation of the world being on the way towards a borderless combination of countries. He
describes how the world is getting flatter with every passing day and how the developed and
developing countries are planning their positions according to it. He depicts the demerits and the
consequences of globalization which leads to dangers and also describes how the rise of China
can lead to a vast environmental hazard for the whole world. Europe is a leading example of
irrelevant Border States which allows free trade and relaxed international immigration within the
member states. After the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, for the European Union
(EU), the importance of borders in Europe has been confined only for the non-EU members.
There is almost no restriction as outsiders for the citizens of the member states. Delanty and
Held evaluated the European politics from the changing borders points of views and their effect
on the openness in the society. Their researches depict different sorts of strategic plans by
different countries for the encouragement of trade and freedom. .
Do borders still matter?
Borders still play significant roles in politics. Some may argue that their functions are changing
rather than vanishing. Malcolm Anderson takes borders as a dynamic constituent of the state;
they are used as an instrument of state policy. The policies and measures of state authorities are
determined by clearly defined borders and borders can be used as national identities.
Moraczeska evaluates the role and place of borders according to their perception, importance
and measures taken to execute rules within the borders. Moraczeska compares these aspects from
a realistic, transnational and global aspect in the table below:
  Realistic Transnational Global
Border Perception Dividing line Permeable Line Virtual Line
Border Importance Very important Less Important Not important
Action at Border Infrastructure building Gradual depletion of infrastructure No infrastructure

It’s clear from the table that from a realistic, technical view, borders serve as a factor of
nationality and demarcation. It serves as an obstacle against threats, the border acts to splinter
regions with the help of infrastructure made for security purposes and militarization at the
borders. Borders still play the role of fragmenting regions at a transnational perspective, but it’s
not a solid dividing line. It’s considered permeable where there’s a gradual abolition of
infrastructure which opens up flows of goods, money and people. Globally, the borders are
supposed to be as international markets. They’re viewed as a “virtual line”, a line only seen on a
map but don’t subsist for global markets which emphasize the concept of the world as a whole
becoming borderless. We can also observe that the importance of a border is diminishing
globally. It is not observed as a barrier but as a consolidation for international flows. The border
works as a miscellaneous market system and legal system. So the border is still associated with a
territory but its function changes in the way that it divides one zone (economically, monetary,
politically) from another but it’s not linked with a nation-state but to a market. Borders between
these different zones can be ways of profits or losses therefore, the idea of a borderless world
isn’t entirely correct even from a global point of view.
Whereas borders seem to be more permeable in terms of trade, U.S borders are becoming more
securitized when it comes to immigration. The U.S (and multiple other states) has become
determined to gain more control over their external borders after the terrorist attacks September
11, 2001. The USA has fortifies visa requirements and immigration measures to control
international movement of people. The US has also begun construction of hundreds of miles of
fencing along its border with Mexico. This process doesn’t only confine material flow from
Mexico to USA but also cuts off thousands of people who benefited from job opportunities.
Many other nations around the world such as Thailand, Uzbekistan, Iran, Brazil, Botswana, and
Spain have also reinforced their existing border barriers
Even though the U.S and other nations around the globe have become more open to trade,
borders between nations still subsist and effect flow of trade. The border between USA and
Canada has huge impact on the trade flow and prices between the two nations. It can be seen that
if two neighboring countries such as these still have border impacts despite the vanishing of a lot
of barriers and tariffs, countries trading from further will be faced with border impacts as well.
This attests the thought of globalization making the world borderless irrelevant. We also observe
that borders can be treated differently and can have different roles. Borders observed from a
global perspective tend to play an integrative role were as from a realistic and transnational
perspective, they take on a dividing role. Borders cannot be observed from a single perspective;
they continue to function in a different way in different scales. So overall, borders are not just the
markings or fences that demarcate one nation from another; virtual borders within countries can
be formed and are being formed. Therefore, it cannot be argued that the world is becoming
borderless rather, borders are transforming.
Conclusion:
In fact, Globalization is taking place and that the typical openness of countries has increased. As,
we live in a ‘flat’ (Friedman 2005), borderless (Ohmae 1990) world, even if practical to the most
open countries that subsist, the world is nowhere close to these metaphors. Distance still matters,
and national borders have not vanished, with respect to cross-border interactions between
countries. However, the openness of countries has increased, but the world today is far from
completely integrated in terms of economic, social and political relations. But the openness of
countries does not always develop linearly. Openness increases overall at certain points in time,
thereby nourishing conjecture about an forthcoming fully integrated world, but in most instances
these periods are followed by a period in which openness decreases, at least in some respects.
Since it is likely that such variations will continue in the future, it is uncertain whether we will
end up in a fully integrated world.