ABSTRACT
The politics of borders has become an important practice of liberal rule for limiting liberties. Many liberal discourses depict people without or with limited rights as outside liberal rule, as not yet having entered the space of liberal rule. Border zones – whether on the territory, on the seas or in third countries – are depicted as outside the liberal state, outside its rule of law and outside its responsibility, implying that the laws of the liberal state do not apply here. This portrayal affirms a normative distinction between liberal rule and illiberal rule, locating access to rights inside, and the lack or limitation of rights outside, the liberal state. To understand contemporary limits to liberal rule, or how the scope of liberties is limited under liberal rule, it is important to focus on spaces of liberal rule, the state’s multiple legal geographies and more specifically its legal borders. An emphasis on the bordering practices of the state illustrates that border zones are inside liberal rule. The laws of the liberal state create the border zones; the limitation of liberties is rendered possible through the legal order created by the rule of law. Hence, these spaces are not outside liberal rule, but part of liberal rule. Increasingly, liberal societies are using not territory, but law as a bordering practice. Governments can declare places under their jurisdiction as foreign territory or use other forms of legal spatiality to exclude people from fundamental rights. Using legal bordering practices, liberal rule can extend the scope of legal borders of policing beyond the legal borders of rights. Legal borders are a widely accepted practice for restricting liberties under liberal rule. The distinction between inside and outside is strategically used to change the balance between security and liberties, to increase sovereign policing powers and limit access to liberal rights and procedures. Legal borders define who is inside or outside the state – especially for refugees, migrants and other foreigners, this distinction is crucial as it either provides access to the liberal society and rights, or places them outside it. It is the link between law, identity and space, inside and outside the liberal state, and a normative distinction between liberal and illiberal rule that is the point of inquiry. These are questions on the space of liberal rule, its portrayal and its scope.
