Geopolitical rebordering? External boundary formation in the European Union

This paper analyses the impact of geopolitical pressures on external boundary formation in the European Union (EU). In contrast to bellicist and realist expectations, it argues that the EU’s reaction to heightened geopolitical pressures is predominantly shaped by its regulatory model of political development. While the EU reacts to mounting pressures by increasing the closure of its security-relevant boundaries with geopolitical rivals, executive competences and resources for boundary control remain with the member states. To examine these expectations, the paper leverages a novel dataset on EU boundary configurations. The results support our expectations of regulatory geopolitical rebordering. While the closure of the EU’s external boundaries has increased over the past two decades, and especially so for security-relevant boundaries with rival powers, the same geopolitical pressures have had no effect on EU executive control. We conclude that, as a primarily regulatory polity, the EU focuses on regulating the openness of its external boundaries in response to geopolitical threats rather than building centralised capacity.