In North America and Europe, cross-border governance arrangements have provided formal and informal frameworks to support cross-border cooperation. Analysing how these frameworks have emerged, the ways in which they have become institutionalized, and the processes by which they change is fundamental. Moreover, these frameworks are increasingly challenged by border securitization, thus limiting or jeopardizing decades of cross-border cooperative governance and coordinated public policies. Agents and Structures in Cross-Border Governance offers a series of case studies that explore these complex dynamics. To understand a range of cross-border governance frameworks, this collection addresses such topics as infrastructure development and management, resource sharing, regional politics, economics, security, human rights, the environment, culture, and community. The book explains how cross-border governance schemes have sought to mitigate some of the negative consequences of border security policies, allowing readers to discern how concrete national power struggles between federal/national and subnational governments unfold in border areas. In a world increasingly impacted by climate change and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, Agents and Structures in Cross-Border Governance sheds light on the ongoing complexity of cross-border governance and offers lessons to help mitigate these challenges.

Offering a general view of the development of subnational foreign action around the world, this work covers topics such as the repercussions upon subnational autonomy of the progressive consistution of international regimes such as the EU, NAFTA and APEC.

This book explores the new debates on Basque sovereignty and statehood that have emerged in the post-violence Basque political scenario. It deciphers how sovereignty is understood or imagined by a revitalized civil society after the unilateral cessation of operations by ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom). The contributors to this book investigate the new political field developing in the nexus between conventional party politics, established socio-cultural and linguistic organizations, creative civil society initiatives, and innovative activism. This book is for graduate students, scholars and professionals in political science, social anthropology, European studies, political philosophy, transnational studies, sociology, political geography, and global studies. It will also be of interest to academic specialists in Basque studies, specialists working on sovereignty, nationalism and globalization, and professionals in governance, international relations, foreign affairs, European politics and diplomacy.

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.

The impact of recent shifts in global geopolitics and economic markets has led to the re-conceptualization of national borders. Scholars have shifted their analysis away from the narrow idea of «borders», and moved their attention towards the wider view of «borderlands», «border regions», and «border zones», thus, leading to the conceptual re-definition of border politics. These recent approaches have identified border areas as socially constructed territories that demonstrate many of the characteristics of independent polities. Border communities seem to have come to life, creating a degree of autonomy and separation from central state actors. While the rich literature in border studies identifies important changes in local political and economic systems, it does not necessarily identify the mechanisms that create these changes: Why has integration occurred in some border regions while others are being reinforced? Why has integration failed in some cases where opportunity structures are positive, while it has succeeded in others saddled with more limited constraints? The essays in this volume address such fundamental questions.

"This work traces the meaning of identity in the Basque Country of France between the late eighteenth century and the present, including French state-building efforts in promoting a French national identity, attempts to encourage French and Basque sentiment, and the emergence of Basque nationalism with its emphasis on a Basque national identity"--Provided by publisher.