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Debordering the World of States:

Towards a Multi-Level System in Europe and a Multi-Polity System in North America? Insights from Border Regions

University of Konstanz, Germany

The Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states is being challenged as national administrations lose their `gate-keeper-role' between domestic and international politics. But what kind of political system is emerging `after Westphalia'? The article attempts to answer this question by looking at processes of political institution-building in cross-border regions in Europe and North America. A classification of political institutions is developed which, in a first dimension, distinguishes between instrumental and identity-providing institutions. Second, formal, encompassing and territorially based political institutions are contrasted with informal, specific and non-territorial institutions. Based on this classification, the forms of cross-border collaboration in four border regions in Europe and North America are compared. In Europe, cross-border collaboration is producing another soft, but formalized, comprehensive and territorially defined layer in the European `multi-level-system'. In North America, by contrast, only informal, specific and non-territorial institutions are evolving across the national borders. Here, the territorially based nation-state is not complemented by similar kinds of polities, but is instead being challenged more fundamentally by new kinds of polities — transnational socio-economic exchange networks and transnational ideological coalitions which embody enormous transformational potential.

Key Words: borders • deterritorialization • political institutions • regional integration • transatlantic comparison

European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 7, No. 2, 175-209 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1354066101007002002


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