ABSTRACT
Conceptually, Europe is linked to Asia through the notion of Eurasia, an unbroken (but not undivided) continental expanse, which in recent decades has been the origin or site of a number of major global struggles and conflicts. Modernity has seen Eurasia divided according to two principles which have produced a familiar pattern of bordering: an East–West divide, and a core–periphery relation. Neither of these divisions dominates Europe–Asia relations at the present time, although they both still exert an influence over political orientations and continue to inform identity politics. Contemporary bordering and rebordering processes are occurring in a post-Western Europe increasingly preoccupied with developing the means with which to govern its own social and political transformations and those taking place within the wider world. Bordering is an essential component of European Union (EU) governance, and the rebordering of Eurasia is an important dimension of EU attempts at ‘global governance’.
