ABSTRACT
Regional integration promises to open up borders, expand the mobility of persons and resources, institutionalize multilateral cooperation fostering security and prosperity, and multiply arenas of belonging, encouraging more inclusive collective identities. In the North American case at least, these promises have rung increasingly hollow. 1 Unequal relationships between states were built into regional agreements at their inception, and the priority of national interests, especially security, has continued to confound cooperation. Harsh attempts to resolidify borders have ensued. In consequence, large groups remain excluded, are becoming progressively marginalized, or find themselves caught in a web of tensions created by the confrontation between transnational forces encouraging migration on one hand, and reassertions of local or national sovereignty emphasizing security on the other. Bridging the gaps in this web to extricate such groups before they fall into the void beneath is proving to be extremely difficult for national and transnational institutions in the region. On the contrary, some national and sub-national governments are actively pursuing blatantly exclusionary policies in their efforts to fill the ruptures in their institutional framework that deter-ritorialization and global restructuring have opened up, or exposed anew.
