Internal Rebordering in the European Union: Postfunctionalism Revisited

[journal article]

Abstract

The EU has been under severe strain as a free-travel area. The migration crisis of the mid-2010s and the current Covid-19 pandemic have exerted a negative impact on the freedom of movement in the EU and the undisturbed crossing of internal borders within the Schengen area. Direct effects and long-te... view more

The EU has been under severe strain as a free-travel area. The migration crisis of the mid-2010s and the current Covid-19 pandemic have exerted a negative impact on the freedom of movement in the EU and the undisturbed crossing of internal borders within the Schengen area. Direct effects and long-term consequences of the prolonged crisis have shown that the dynamics of integration, which are determined by spillover effects of transnational processes, are counterposed by a politicization of domestically-embedded issues of security governance. This assumption underpins the postfunctionalist approach to European integration proposed originally by Hooghe and Marks. The tendency towards longstanding derogations from the Schengen regime, termed "internal rebordering", should be juxtaposed with efforts of the European Commission towards a full restoration of the Schengen area without controls at internal borders. The argument developed in this article holds that internal rebordering has been embedded in the logic of the EU as an area of freedom, security, and justice comprising the Schengen area as its territorial manifestation. The rebordering processes in the EU and in the Schengen area have questioned the principle of "constraining dissensus" underlaying the postfunctionalist approach.... view less

Keywords
EU; national border; Schengen Agreement; mobility; border protection

Classification
European Politics
Peace and Conflict Research, International Conflicts, Security Policy

Free Keywords
European Union; Schengen; borders; mobility; postfunctionalism; rebordering

Document language
English

Publication Year
2022

Page/Pages
p. 246-255

Journal
Politics and Governance, 10 (2022) 2

Issue topic
Re-Visioning Borders: Europe and Beyond

ISSN
2183-2463

Status
Published Version; peer reviewed

Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0