New Control and Selectivity Arrangements

Abstract

The “golden age” system of states was built around a close nexus of authority, territory and border control. Control was mainly in the hands of sovereign states and exercised at points of entry to the territory. Western states’ interest in closure and control took precedence over their interest in openness and mobility. In the 19th century, territorial closure was complemented by social closure. Nation-states created membership spaces through the introduction and institutionalization of citizenship. Together, the regulation of both the geographic and the membership space fostered a congruence of social, political and economic spaces, stabilizing the domestic order. In practical terms, this system contributed to the institutionalization of strong boundaries separating the domestic from the foreign. Territorial borders limited the spatial scope of national societies and of states’ reach and jurisdiction. Though global hierarchies have always existed and asymmetrical inter-state relations have always been the rule rather than the exception, territorial closure and the exercise of territorial control profoundly contributed to a horizontal segmentation of the world population in distinguishable units of self-contained nation-states and, respectively, national societies.