ABSTRACT
Among the key themes in studies of the transformation of contemporary Europe are questions of identity and belonging, the meaning of transnational citizenship, the democractic defi cit of the EU, and the need to understand the new spaces of Europe and the processes of bordering associated with them. Each of these themes has generated a huge literature. The work of Etienne Balibar is distinctive in that he links all of these themes (and more besides) within a cogent account of Europe’s transformations. His work is also notable for the priority he accords borders in the study of democracy, citizenship, and the question of European identity (Outhwaite, 2006a). Etienne Balibar is arguably the leading theorist of Europe’s borders, although paradoxically his infl uence has not been great on ‘mainstream’ EU studies, or, for that matter, on border studies. This neglect1 is rather puzzling given the numerous articles and chapters he has written on the theme of borders in Europe over the past decade or so, forming a remarkable corpus of work which deserves closer scholarly attention. It is less diffi cult to understand however, if one considers the inward-looking nature of EU studies and the lack of interest displayed by scholars of integration in embracing work from other disciplines such as geography, and especially sociology and social theory.
