Borderlands

Working Paper Vol. 21

Visuel
Working Paper Vol21
Abstract

The scientific literature on the Euroscepticism of border populations provides contradictory results. This Working Paper takes a spatial approach, to show that the level of support for the EU among border populations should be surveyed on a local scale, and not on a regional scale. Euroscepticism is estimated on the basis of the vote in the European elections of June 2024, in the case of the French region of Grand Est, which borders on 4 countries. Several characteristics of this vote are analysed and related to the socio-economic profile of the territories, using a quantitative geography approach. The results show that there is a border specificity in attitudes towards the EU, in the sense of disengagement (abstention). They also show the variety of border contexts, and, among social groups, a lesser effect of euroscepticism among blue-collar and white-collar workers close to the border.

Miniature
Summary

There is an extensive growth in the number of international borders. At the same time goods, people and ideas are more mobile than ever before. A Companion to Border Studies brings together viewpoints on these developments by preeminent border scholars from the fields of anthropology, geography, history, development studies, political science and sociology. Case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, are presented. A comprehensive analysis of key characteristics of frontiers and borders, including topics such as security, cross-border cooperation, and controls, population displacements and migration, transnationalism and hybridity is provided.

Miniature
Summary

The anthology “European Borderlands,” edited by Elisabeth Boesen and Gregor Schnuer, contains an introduction and 11 chapters of content. It deals with everyday practices in European border regions that support social development and cultural identity. Changes in border regions are considered from a historical, sociological, economic, geographical, literary, anthropological or political perspective. The selected case studies are mainly located in border regions between Germany and its neighbouring countries, but also between Belgium and France, Estonia and Finland or Hungary and Slovakia. They show the diversity of border demarcations, which contradict a “borderless Europe” through border narratives.