Introduction Marina Caparini and Otwin Marenin The chapters in this volume originated as papers delivered at the conference ‘Managing International and Inter-Agency Cooperation at the Border’, held in Geneva on 13-15 March 2003. The idea behind organising the conference, and its objective, was to conduct an assessment of recent developments in the governance of border security systems, both within the European region, and comparatively across other regions. Transnational movements of people, goods, and capital have become important security policy items on national and global agendas, and the control of such movements is focused largely on efforts at borders. The powers and reach of border control systems have been enhanced by changes in law, increased political attention, an influx of resources, the utilisation of technological detection and control devices and systems, and a security discourse which stresses border management as crucial element in ensuring the stability of states and the well-being of citizens. In short, as border guards and other state authorities have been given more authority and as their capacity to coercively control people has been magnified, the perennial question of how to control and hold accountable agencies and agents who exercise that power, often within wide margins of discretion, has risen to greater salience. At the same time, the means and mechanisms of accountability must respond to the realities of evolving forms of border management if they are to be effective and legitimate. There are widely acknowledged reasons why borders and the accountability of evolving border control systems now matter. In an era of globally structured change and the increasing interconnections of international and local affairs, advancing integration of even remote societies into a global system of commerce, migration and production is apparent, supported by technologies of communication and transportation far more efficient and more difficult to know about and control than traditional means. All of these factors enabling legitimate traffic flows in people, capital, resources and commerce have also enabled illegitimate activities. Globalisation depends on open borders, or at least borders which can be crossed with relative ease and convenience. The increasing interdependence of global means of production and information raises practical questions of how to coordinate production and trade (such as building cars or computers with parts manufactured in many countries) and the flows of capital and profits which can only be done efficiently if traditional borders and notions of sovereignty on which they are based are devalued. At the same time, that necessary permeability of conventional borders Marina Caparini and Otwin Marenin also allows illegitimate flows of people and capital (human trafficking, uncontrolled migration, money laundering, the trafficking of illegal goods and services) and, as well, the ingress of terrorists into target states. As economic liberalisation produces more global markets, borders need to be more carefully watched; whilst globalisation beats against the crumbling ramparts of sovereignty, security practitioners must seek more effective ways to prop up national borders. This dilemma will only worsen and complicate the very notion of the function of borders in the new era. A second reason why borders have gained policy salience, despite the rumoured decline of the Westphalian system and the nation-state, is the emergence of regions seeking to coordinate themselves as wider systems of economic and political integration. The European Union is a prime example, as are the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other regional systems not as far advanced in their integration (such as MERCOSUR in South America or the ASEAN community). The creation of regional arrangements having political salience decreases the importance of internal borders and raises external borders to the status formerly occupied by international borders. The protection of the region against threats from any source begins to depend on how well external border controls can be established and sustained. The EU has advanced furthest down the road towards abolishing the security aspects of internal borders, against some quite vehement opposition at the initial stages, and has struggled with devising external border control systems which can be trusted to effectively assume the former control functions of the now internal borders. Third, in an era of global interdependence, borders have been effectively de-territorialised and detached from their physical moorings. Borders now exist wherever they interfere with the legal flows of a global system, and border controls are often exercised quite far removed from the physical locations demarcating an imaginary line between two states. Some of these lines, though real, create problems because they do not reflect ongoing political and economic developments. One can think of situations such as the tiny Spanish territories of Ceuta and Mellila near Africa, whose borders have become deathtraps for illegal immigrants seeking a way into the EU; or the Cabinda enclave hundreds of miles removed from its sovereign core Angola; or the leftovers of colonial empires still owing allegiance to a far distant mother country, as is the case with the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon to France. These remnants of historical conflicts and conquests make little sense in the current global era, and they are security problems which the countries involved can ill afford to control ineffectively. The more security conditions worsen at these unreal borders, the more are their irrationalities exposed. Lastly, there is the recognition that long standing localised border systems are laboratories for effective and legitimate border control systems and can be incubators or catalysts for wider regional integration. Life in border regions and zones has often been substantially different in culture and ease of Introduction trans-border communication and traffic from national relations across borders. In many border zones, e.g., Mexico–USA or France–Germany (especially in regions which have been passed back and forth into the sovereign domain of the other state (such as Alsace or the Saarland), people are as familiar with the language and customs of the other nation as they are with their own. The national border has been an inconvenience to local (zonal) life rather than an issue of nationalistic pride. Much of the discussion of border management and the need for accountability and good governance of border control systems takes place under the theoretical and policy umbrella of Security Sector Reform (SSR). SSR starts from the policy position that security for any state and its citizens is provided by many formal (military, police, gendarmerie, intelligence, border guards) and informal security providers (corporate, community-based militias) and that the effective functioning and performance of security agencies needs to be analysed systematically and systemically. The provision of security is a system, akin to the economic or legal system, and has to be analysed holistically as a network of more or less articulated agencies all populating the security field. Each individual security agency deserves study, but so do their articulations and inter-connections to each other. The title of the conference— integrated management—reflected that broader understanding. Since security is a field of action, accountability mechanisms also need to be able to deal with individual actors on the field, as well as with their relations to each other. The importance of border protection has a different salience when considered as part of a security system rather than a separate area of action (which it is). For example, the traditional reluctance of security agencies to cooperate or share information, each protecting its own turf, can be as much a problem for providing security for the state as can external threats to security. The USA found this out after investigating the relations among security agencies before the terrorist attacks of September 11. Much more information existed than was shared, and if it had been effectively pooled that threat might have been detected and the attack prevented. The need for accountability, hence, requires a look at the security system or sector as well as individual agencies. Contributors to the conference were asked to describe and assess recent border and border security developments, with a primary focus on the European Union. The editors of this volume, and the organisers of the conference, also sought out contributors who could provided insights on comparative border control developments in the North American region, and on changes in threats to the borders and the extension of border protection functions by the mandated co-optation of private and corporate companies into border controlling the flow of people, money and goods across threatened borders. The chapters in this volume are arranged thematically, and by region. Two introductory papers by Marenin and Hills discuss the broader issues faced in managing security and accountability at new and old borders, and the likely Marina Caparini and Otwin Marenin obstacles faced in instituting accountability and good governance as part of SSR. Marenin looks closely at the challenges of democratic oversight of border control systems, drawing in part on the insights offered by policing literature, and explains why democratic oversight is more