Introduction

This chapter examines the development of border management in South-east Europe, the location of many security issues, and its implications for Europe's immediate future. It assesses the changing nature, form and location of state responses in terms of the agents managing borders: border guards. The examines the assumptions and principles underpinning contemporary explanations of guarding and the social realities that determine its effectiveness, basing its approach on the premise that current border-security developments result from a combination of political, ideological, functional and cultural variables. Border guards operate at the intersection of a number of topical concerns, where many security problems present themselves with particular intensity.