North American Borders in Comparative Perspective

by Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (Editor), Victor Konrad (Editor), Alan Artibise (Foreword by)

Overview

The northern and southern borders and borderlands of the United States should have much in common; instead they offer mirror articulations of the complex relationships and engagements between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In North American Borders in Comparative Perspectiveleading experts provide a contemporary analysis of how globalization and security imperatives have redefined the shared border regions of these three nations.

This volume offers a comparative perspective on North American borders and reveals the distinctive nature first of the overportrayed Mexico-U.S. border and then of the largely overlooked Canada-U.S. border. The perspectives on either border are rarely compared. Essays in this volume bring North American borders into comparative focus; the contributors advance the understanding of borders in a variety of theoretical and empirical contexts pertaining to North America with an intense sharing of knowledge, ideas, and perspectives.

Adding to the regional analysis of North American borders and borderlands, this book cuts across disciplinary and topical areas to provide a balanced, comparative view of borders. Scholars, policy makers, and practitioners convey perspectives on current research and understanding of the United States’ borders with its immediate neighbors. Developing current border theories, the authors address timely and practical border issues that are significant to our understanding and management of North American borderlands.

The future of borders demands a deep understanding of borderlands and borders. This volume is a major step in that direction.

Contributors
Bruce Agnew
Donald K. Alper
Alan D. Bersin
Christopher Brown
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly
Irasema Coronado
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
Michelle Keck
Victor Konrad
Francisco Lara-Valencia
Tony Payan
Kathleen Staudt
Rick Van Schoik
Christopher Wilson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816539529
Publisher:	University of Arizona Press
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is an associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and nonresident scholar at the Baker Institute’s Mexico Center at Rice University. Correa-Cabrera is also co-editor of the International Studies Perspectives (ISP) journal.

Victor Konrad teaches geography at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is a former president of both the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States and the Association for Borderlands Scholars, and he is a recipient of the Donner Medal. Author of more than one hundred publications, he has been the founding director of the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program and a visiting professor at universities in China, the United States, and Europe.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Introduction. The international Boundary Perimeter of the United States of America: Two Borders and Many Borderlands Guadalupe Coreea-Cabrera Victor Konrad 3

North American Borders in Maps 23

Part I Replacing Borders between Mexico, the United States, and Canada

1 Actors, Strategic Fields, and Game Rules: Examining Governance at the U.S. Mexico Border in the Twenty-First Century Tony Payan 39

2 Reimagining the Border Between Canada and the United States Victor Konrad 72

3 Twenty-First-Century North American Borders: More Fixed, Fuzzy, Flexible, Fluid, or Free? Sovereignty Lesson from Around the Globe Rick Van Schoik 98

Part II Spaces, Divisions, and Connectivity in North American Borderlands

4 Transborder Spaces and Regional identity in North America Francisco Lara-Valencia 123

5 Territorial Divisive and Connective Spaces: Shifting Meanings of Borders in the North American Borderlands Donald K. Alper 149

6 Lines and Flows 2: The Beginning and End of Bonders in North America Alan D. Bersin 180

Part III Border Governance in North America

7 Bonders in Globalization: The Twenty-First-Century Globalization and Border Governance Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly 207

8 Borden Narratives in a Neoliberal Era: The Central U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Kathleen Staudt 232

9 Empowering Borderlands: Lessons from Cascadia and the Pacific Northwest Bruce Agnew 258

Part IV Integration and Border Policy Directions in North America

10 North American Energy Ties Across Unequal Borders: Canada-U.S.-Mexico Energy integration in Times of Borden Disruption Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera Michelle Keck 273

11 Maturing Gross-Border Cooperation for Economic Development Christopher Wilson 300

12 Comparative Examination of Binational Watershed Research in North America: from Case Studies to 8 Continental Gestalt Christopher Brown 323

15 A Model for Trilateral Collaboration: The Commission for Environmental Cooperation: Whither the CEC? Irasema Coronado 361

Conclusion. Toward North American Integration? Victor Konrad Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera 379

Contributors 397

Index 401

Editorial Reviews

With essays by leading border scholars and practitioners, this book provides superb analysis of how evolving globalization and the security imperative have redefined the shared borders and border regions of the USA, Canada, and Mexico. North American Borders in Comparative Perspective is a key resource for students, scholars, the policy community, and community activists who want to understand these critical border regions of North America.”—Paul Ganster, co-author of The U.S.-Mexico Border into the Twenty-First Century
 

From the Publisher