Based on original research this book is a unique attempt at a general assessment of EU frontiers. Internal frontiers are losing some of their key functions but there are many responses to the new situation, as a case study of French frontiers abundantly illustrates. An examination of the EU external frontier shows that the EU is acquiring some state-like features, but the eastern frontier provides abundant evidence of the external frontier’s complexity. The authors conclude that the increasing openness of national frontiers will continue, but their effective abolition, whether by European integration or through ‘globalization’, is improbable.
 | Eberhard BortEberhard “Paddy” Bort, a graduate in English and German of Tübingen University, is the Academic Coordinator of the Institute of Governance and a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Edinburgh. His teaching has included Scottish Society and Culture, Contemporary Irish Politics and British Studies. He is Book Reviews Editor of Scottish Affairs. Before coming to Edinburgh in 1995, he worked at Tübingen University in British and Irish Studies with Professor Christopher Harvie (now an MSP), taught in German Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wa., USA. Between 1995 and 1998 he worked with Professor Malcolm Anderson on an ESRC-funded research project on ‘The Internal and External Frontiers of the European Union’. From 1997 to 1999 he was Associate Director of the International Social Sciences Institute at Edinburgh University. |