ISSN 1884-9466

Eurasia Border Review Second Series
Volume 11 Fall 2020
Table of Contents
Beginning our Second Series ............................................................................

1

Re-bordering in the EU under Covid-19 in the First Half of 2020: A Lesson for Northeast Asia?
Jarosław Jańczak .........................................................................................

2

Q & A .......................................................................................................

17

About the Contributors .................................................................................... 25i

Eurasia Border Review Second Series
EDITORS
Akihiro IWASHITA
Slavic-Eurasian Research Center
Hokkaido University

Edward BOYLE
Graduate School of Law
Kyushu University

Seth CERVANTESCalifornia School of Education
Alliant International University

EDITORIAL BOARD
Akihiro IWASHITA
Slavic-Eurasian Research Center
Hokkaido University

Kazuto SUZUKI
Graduate School of Public Policy
The University of Tokyo

Hideki TARUMOTO
Faculty of Letters, Art and Sciences
Waseda University

Hiroshi YOSHIMI
Executive Director & Vice President
Hokkaido University

Tomohiko UYAMA
Slavic-Eurasian Research Center
Hokkaido University

David WOLFF
Slavic-Eurasian Research Center
Hokkaido University

Jonathan BULL
Research Faculty of Media andCommunication
Hokkaido University

Naomi Hyunju CHI
Graduate School of Public Policy
Hokkaido University

Fuminori KAWAKUBO
Faculty of Law
Chuo Gakuin Universityii

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARDPaul RICHARDSON
School of Geography, Earth andEnvironmental Sciences
University of Birmingham

Guadalupe CORREA-CABRERA
Schar School of Policy and Government
George Mason University

Machteld VENKEN
Centre of Contemporary and Digital History
Université du Luxembourg

Dmitry STRELTSOVDepartment of Oriental Studies
Moscow State Institute of International
RelationsAlexander BUKHPolitical Science and International Relations
Programme
Victoria University of Wellington

Stéphanie MARTEL
Department of Political Studies
Queen’s University

Christopher LEN
Energy Studies InstituteNational University of Singapore

Ki-Hyun BAN
Department of Military History
Korea Military Academy

Mirza Zulfiqur RAHMAN
Institute of Chinese Studies
Delhi©2020 by the Eurasia Border Review
All rights reserved
Printed in Japan

iii

Beginning our Second Series
In October 2020, the Eurasia Border Review begins its Second Series. As we noted in Volume
10, the concluding volume of Series One, the new series signals the transition to a new publication
model, one that will offer the opportunity to develop special issues on disciplinary or thematic issues.
COVID-19 is transforming our world, and we are encountering new issues on a daily basis. Our
revamped EBR will stress speed and flexibility, and provide a platform for innovative and sociallyengaged research.
The first issue of this Second Series, Volume 11 in our run, grows out of the Summer Symposium
held on July 2-3, 2020 at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center. Entitled “Northeast Asia: Pitfalls andProspects, Past and Present”, the conference was under the aegis of the NIHU Area Studies Project for
Northeast Asia (NoA-SRC), and as with previous iterations was originally planned to take place on siteat Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. As may be imagined, COVID-19 prevented our overseas
guests from travelling to Japan and also limited mobility within the country, so the entire event was
rapidly transferred online. While the time difference provided some headaches, participants from Korea,
Russia, New Zealand, Poland, the UK, the US, and so forth ensured a tremendously successful sociallydistanced event.
This issue provides a record of one of the sessions from the symposium, a Special Lecture
on “Rebordering in the EU under Covid-19: Lessons for Northeast Asia?” given by Jarosław Jańczak
of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. COVID-19 is a pandemic that has overwhelmed regional aswell as national borders, but it has manifested itself differently in different regions, with the responsesof various national governments heavily marked by these regional differences. The majority of the
Symposium was devoted to research papers focussed on Northeast Asia, but the current lecture provides
us with the opportunity to contextualize Northeast Asia’s response and thus offers a number of lessons
for the region. This first issue of our new Series of EBR provides a clear contribution to the work we areconducting under the NIHU Area Studies Project here at the SRC.
We would be delighted if our first contribution to the new series provides everyone with anopportunity to usefully reflect upon such critical questions. We also look forward to more volumes
emerging in the future.
								October 2020																											DOI: 10.14943/ebr.11.1

1

On behalf of the Editors
Akihiro Iwashita &Edward Boyle

Re-bordering in the EU under Covid-19 in the First Half of 2020:
A Lesson for Northeast Asia?
Jarosław Jańczak

Introduction
The 2020 pandemic has been the most challenging development for domestic and international relations in the twenty-first century, affecting not only all states and societies worldwide but also the international system itself. The coronavirus, originally detected in China, very
quickly spread globally, ignoring political borders (Liu & Saif 2020) as well as most efforts toprevent its spread. Consequently, the disease (and its results) moved from Asia to Europe andthen on to America and Africa, causing previously unimaginable turbulence.
As early as March, statistics demonstrated that East Asia as a region (as well as theindividual states located there) were coping with the pandemic much more effectively than
EUrope, despite the fact that the virus had struck Asia first. When looking for explanations,scholars, commentators, and politicians have tended to point to several reasons for Asian states
successfully overcoming Covid-19. They are, among others, social habits (the mask wearing
tradition in East Asia, the model of less direct contact in everyday situations, or a different
diet resulting in fewer illnesses that coincide with the virus), the orientation towards authority(Asian obedience towards authority), the relation between communitarian and individualistic
attitudes (Salomon 2020a), leadership (less politicized in Asia), earlier vaccination policy (onlyrecommended in many West European states) (Salomon 2020b), and many others.
Accepting the explanatory value of (at least some of) these arguments, it seems thatthe attitude that Europe could learn from East Asia (and not the reverse) has been almost unanimously accepted in both public and academic debates. However, the current situation can bealso interpreted in reverse: Europe, heavily affected by the pandemic, started to sink into political, economic, and social crises that will have significant consequences not only for the region
but also for the global order. The way these crises have already manifested themselves, andthe reactions to combat them seem interesting for other global regions as to how they may beaffected or influenced by their consequences.
The above perspective is the starting point for this article, which reflects on whether
and to what extent the political, economic and social changes caused by the pandemic in Europe
may serve as a lesson for the region of Northeast Asia. The author decided to concentrate on
DOI: 10.14943/ebr.11.2

2

Jarosław Jańczak

one of the most crucial aspects of combatting the pandemic, border (control) policy, and test
the situation in the first half of the year 2020. As Peter Ulrich and Norbert Cyrus remark, “themeasures to contain the corona pandemic can be reduced to a large common denominator: itis the drawing of new borders and the consolidation of existing ones” (Cyrus & Ulrich 2020).
Closing borders has several effects. On the one hand, massive re-bordering in Europe was both
functionally and symbolically considered the primary and most important tool for fighting thefurther spread of the coronavirus across the region. On the other hand, it quickly became oneof the elements of changing regional and global orders, with serious consequences for both the
integration processes in Europe and relations between Europe and other global regions.
This analysis is composed of six sections. After the introductory remarks, the meaning
and role of borders in Europe are discussed. This is followed by an empirical and analytical
overview of pandemic re-bordering and a case study investigating multi-level governance elements at the time of the pandemic. Finally, a short parallel to the East Asian environment is
proposed, which leads to the concluding remarks.

Europe, borders and the (myth of a) borderless world
European history is the history of shifting borders and territorial disputes. Starting inthe seventeenth century, numerous feudal states fighting for space were replaced with nation
states, based on the principle of national self-determination and a population of members of
one’s own nation within state borders. The concept of the frontier and overlapping influences
was transformed, together with the creation of the Westphalian order, into boundaries (Kristof
1959). They marked the exclusive power of the national center over a precisely defined territory.
Border sensitivity in Europe is shown by the fact that at the beginning of the nineteenth century only a very small group of states had the same borders as they have today. The post-1945
order in Europe was characterized by the general principle that the location of a border should
remain unchanged (unless the parties agreed on such a development), and the Helsinki process
was a final step in the mutual and wide recognition of the borders existing in Europe. Against
this background, the collapse of communism (usually symbolized by the collapse of the Berlin
Wall), and the conclusion of the Schengen Agreement some years later, created an environmentthat broke with the painful territorial past in Europe: once the location and permanence of stateborders was finally recognized they (could) became permeable or even practically “non-existent” from the point of view of common Europeans (Alkan 2002).
This de-bordering had at least two dimensions, functional and symbolic. The former
was manifested by the emergence of the common market and the implementation of “the four
freedoms”. The liberal policy of eliminating barriers saw borders in Europe as obstacles to the3Eurasia Border Review

flow of goods, services, people, and capital. Schengen supplemented free flows, reducing costs
and permitting uninterrupted mobility. The latter, framed by the post-1989 myth of “a borderless world” (Agnew 2003), symbolized the freedom of individuals and unity of the continent.
It should be remembered that within the wide spectrum of orientations towards the EU and theintegration project among the Europeans, the Schengen system has been widely and almost
unanimously regarded as one of the most important and appreciated achievements. Both functional and symbolic dimensions have been a manifestation of the European project and of thesupranational level (the European Union), especially in relation to nation states.
A borderless Europe has been a material manifestation of the redefinition of nation
states (Kolossov 2005) with regard to both redesigning the role of border regions and designing
the role of the supranational level in European governance. Both were possible because of thestable, reliable, and highly predictable international environment in the region, an environment
which, additionally, continues to develop following the (neo)functional logic of integration,
both vertically and horizontally. At the conceptual level, it resulted in a constructivist turn anda shift from the neo-realistic and neo-functional perspectives to a social constructivist one.
Borders that used to be perceived as the instruments of power relations or liberalized obstacles
are now considered social constructs based on norms, values, and identities. This attitude wastransferred also to the international level, where Europe perceived itself as a normative power,bringing stability, prosperity, and openness to other states and regions.

Covid-19 and re-bordering in Europe
The pandemic in Europe has become a political disaster, destroying many of the political ideas based on the myth of “a borderless Europe”. As Jaume Castan Pinos and Steven M.
Radil remark, “the word myth has a dual meaning, both referring to a story people tell themselves to explain something about the world and to something that is widely believed as true but
is actually false” (Castan Pinos & Radil 2020). The key question is who should respond to thechallenge and what means should be employed. Especially at the beginning of the crisis, thisseemed to be the task of EU member states, which (almost exclusively) took the lead, at the timeof the (at least initial) passiveness of other actors, especially the EU.
At the beginning of 2020, border closing as a counter-pandemic policy was viewed inEurope as a tool implementable in autocratic states, especially in East Asia. Surprisingly for
Europeans themselves, they very quickly decided to employ the same model (Cyrus & Ulrich2020). The policy of East Asian states closing cities or entire provinces was followed by Europe at the national level, leading to re-bordering tendencies (Salomon 2020b).
Today, the Schengen zone consists of 26 states, 22 of them being EU members. Its

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Jarosław Jańczak

non-control regime may be suspended by a member state in the event of a foreseeable or immediate threat to public policy or internal security, and should always be exceptional, temporary,and proportionate (Dumbrava 2020). Member states have used this opportunity in critical moments, for example, during the 2015 immigration crisis. The immediate measures, following the
Schengen Code, may be introduced for ten days, prolonged for the next twenty days, and last amaximum of two months in total. Additionally, border control reestablishment should be notified to the European Commission and other member states. By April 21, Schengen zone states
introduced various border restrictions, which resulted in a drastic and immediate decrease ofhuman traffic across Europe (Sabbati & Dumbrava 2020) .
Still, the border closing in Europe was not as obvious in February and March as it waslater on. Empirical research on the impact of travel limitations on the transmission of Covid-19
in China and between China and the rest of the world proved thattravel limitations (up to 90% of traffic) have only a modest effect unless paired with publichealth interventions and behavioral changes that can facilitate a considerable reduction indisease transmissibility […]. Travel restrictions to COVID-19–affected areas will have modest effects and that transmission reduction interventions will provide the greatest benefit for
mitigating the epidemic (Chinazzi et al. 2020, 400).

Despite that, limiting mobility has been used as one of the key elements preventing
coronavirus transmission, and border control has become one of the key instruments in preventing individual movement across Europe and to Europe. It served this purpose both functionally(leading to movement limitations) as well as politically and symbolically (allowing member
states to re-gain control over crisis management and take the lead in combating the pandemic).
Almost all EU member states introduced restrictions on border crossing, which ranged
from border controls to the practical closure of the borders (Koerner & Boettcher 2020). Mostof the restrictions were imposed on human traffic; usually only nationals were allowed to enter
their state of residence, typically with a 14-day quarantine (see Figure 1). Cargo traffic was allowed and even recommended to maintain supply chains. Due to border controls (temperature
measurement and location documents), enormous traffic jams appeared at many borders. The
European Commission pushed for “Green Lines” reducing the formalities on strategic bordercrossings to limit the re-bordering effects, especially as intra-EU trade creates about 45 per centof the EU’s GDP and 75 per cent of road-transport based trade (Koerner & Boettcher 2020).
The restrictions affected human traffic, primarily hitting tourism but also cross-borderlabor commuters. There are almost 2 million people commuting to work across borders on aregular basis in the EU. Additionally, there are a significant number of seasonal workers circulating around Europe. All that makes numerous regions, or even states highly dependent on

5Eurasia Border Review

a labor force crossing borders. Consequently, the European Commission encouraged member
states to facilitate free flows for critical human labor forces (Koerner & Boettcher 2020).
Some exceptions to this general tendency can be found, nevertheless. Sweden waspractically the only European state (except for Belarus and the UK in the first phase) that did
not employ a lockdown policy, left its borders open (they were closed however by its neigbours)
and instead of closing the economy introduced “trust based” suggestions for its citizens (Paterlini 2020). This resulted, however, in one of the highest number of cases of infection, especiallyin comparison to other states in the region.
Figure 1: Schengen restrictions on land borders, April 27, 2020.

Source: based on Sabbati & Dumbrava 2020, 2.

As demonstrated by this short overview of de-bordering tendencies, borders and nation
states matter. They have been “making a temporary comeback affecting everyone directly but
not all equally” (Calzada 2020), and definitely more than Europeans expected. Several dimensions of re-bordering can be identified when reflecting on the recent developments in Europe.
Firstly, the physical re-bordering that, as described above, boils down to closing theborders and preventing human flows in a very material sense. The principle of crossing borders
in any place was suspended, traffic was directed again to the border crossing points and border

6

Jarosław Jańczak

gates, fences, guards, etc. were re-introduced.
What was behind this, however, was the political re-bordering aimed at retaking control of the processes related to the corona-crisis. Probably its most striking manifestation was
the ban on exporting medical materials, especially masks, by some of the states less affectedby the virus to those in trouble. Politically, this poisoned relations, for example, between Italy
and Germany (Wynne 2020), following the decree of March 4 stopping the flow of equipment(The Brussels Times 2020). Germany was accused of lacking European solidarity and sensitivity. In the case of this most important actor in the EUropean game, this situation has led toreflection and numerous manifestations of solidarity, including the transfer of infected patientsfrom affected states to German hospitals (Böhm & Kurowska-Pysz 2020). Still, a bad impression remained, especially in the European South. The EU criticized all the bans and called forEuropean solidarity (Tsang 2020). But on March 15, the European Commission issued an Implementing Regulation banning export of personal protective equipment outside the EU.
The key response to Covid-19 was initially given at the national level and re-bordering
formed one of the key instruments. The EU got involved later on, and apparently in a more reactive rather than proactive mode. At the end of February and beginning of March, Ursula vonder Leyen’s European Commission was more focused on the Turkish border, when President
Erdogan blackmailed the EU to let another wave of migrants come to Europe (Herszenhorn& Wheaton 2020). The European Commission proposed closing the EU’s external borders to
non-EU residents, hoping that this would encourage states to leave the internal borders open
(Koerner & Boettcher 2020).
David M. Herszenhorn and Sarah Wheaton claimed in their analysis that “EU nations,despite their pledge to an ever-closer union, reacted selfishly and chaotically once the threat
became evident” (Herszenhorn & Wheaton 2020). Various forms of re-bordering seem to be thebest illustration of this observation. Undermining Schengen, one of the most citizen-friendly
and noticeable elements of European integration (especially as confronted with annoying Brussels bureaucracy) may lead to a crisis of integration itself, especially with regard to legitimacy
and trust (Castan Pinos & Radil 2020).
The European Commission suggested liberalizing border obstacles on internal EU borders while keeping external borders closed. The further success of the integration project required ending up with temporary border restrictions. June 16 was decided by several EU states
as the date for reopening their borders, sometimes in a selective way. For example, Czechia
allowed Poles to enter, with the exception of those from the Silesian region, which sufferedfrom Covid-19 the most in Poland. This caused a form of external re-bordering, affecting not
only relations with neighboring states but with their specific parts.
Re-bordering was easily historically contextualized, especially in the case of difficult
legacy borders, for instance, in the form of misunderstandings of where the border is actually7Eurasia Border Review

located. One of these examples was the village of Pielgrzymów-Pelhrimov on the Polish-Czech
border, where a Polish border guard, by accident, established a border post on the Czech sideof the border “arresting” a local chapel located about 30 meters from the border river. Some
radical politicians compared this incident to the historical events form 1938, when Poland took
advantage of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and captured a strip of land along theborder inhabited by speakers of Polish.
Technological re-bordering demonstrated how selective the nature of border permeability is. While some professions and individuals were stopped by border closures, others,
because of the online mode of their activities (home office, online education), have continued
to operate in cross-border ways (Cyrus & Ulrich 2020).
An interesting phenomenon was related to phantom re-bordering. The western part ofthe continent was much more affected by the pandemic than the eastern one (Figure 2). Whenlooking for the reasons, commentators have drawn attention to several factors: the early lockdown in the East (the states there are poorer, have less developed health care systems and, being
aware of that, were more eager to quickly introduce radical measures); much harsher re-bordering (Shotter & Jones 2020) (criticized in Western Europe and in Brussels); as well as a different
vaccination legacy (obligatory over recent decades in the East and only advised in the West).
Figure 2: Covid-19 deaths per 1 mln inhabitants in Western and Eastern Europe in April 2020

Source: based Shotter, Jones, 2020 after Eurostat and John Hopkins

It was symptomatic that the states of Central and Eastern Europe, forced to knock at the
EU’s doors and then request Schengen enlargement in 2007, were now very eager to become
isolated from their Western neighbors to prevent the proliferation of the pandemic. This refers
to Poland and Germany, or Slovenia and Italy, among others. Eastern EU states closed borders
practically immediately after the first confirmed cases, contrary to the states of Western Europe8Jarosław Jańczak

(Herszenhorn & Wheaton 2020). Re-bordering revealed continental divisions but also reversed
power relations on the continental scale.
Economic re-bordering was already in place. Following the pattern revealed by the2008 economic crisis, a clear line has been drawn between the dynamic European north, which
is able to cope with challenges, and the European south, which has faced serious problems
again. This translates into international relations, for example, in a softer approach towards
China offering assistance and investments (Seaman 2020, 8-9), especially within the logic of“mask diplomacy” (Salomon 2020b), balancing between aid, trade and blackmail. The argument of dependency on external medical supplies has also been raised. This referred especiallyto China, and the postulate to bring some segments of production (crucial for national security)back to Europe. The EU seemed to employ a more geopolitical approach and consider Chinese
domination in some production sectors as an attempt to create strategic dominance (Seaman
2020, 8-10).
Social re-bordering resulted in growing hostility towards others, including people of
Asian origin being blamed for the pandemic, and calling China for more transparency in sharing
information about the virus’s origins (Liu & Saif 2020). It became especially visible after the
Italian pandemic developed, starting with Chinese visitors (Ghiretti & Mariani 2020, 35). On
the other hand, with regard to the direct neighborhood of the EU, the most challenging issue of
migration was silenced and migrants were physically stopped due to the bordering principle.
This short overview of the re-bordering dimensions still requires deeper analyses of
the re-bordering mechanism. A brief look at a specific case reveals the multi-level nature of theprocess.

Multi-level governance and pandemic re-bordering – the case of the German-Polish borderAs already shown, European borders are in constant motion and are the objects ofnever-ending ordering. The same also especially applies to the internal borders of the EU. Thiswas rather dramatically (and painfully for many individuals) demonstrated by the massive (re-)
bordering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic (Shachar 2020), affecting, among others, the German-Polish border – a line that (despite being rooted in conflict) only three months earlier had
been considered just another “boring” European integration location whose key problems had
been overcome and were a thing of the past.
But how did the pandemic affect this specific border? Covid-19, like most of the material and non-material elements shaping Polish reality over the centuries, entered Poland from
Germany. The Polish “patient zero,” living near the border town of Słubice, returned froma family visit across the western border (celebrating carnival in the district of Heinsberg) at

9Eurasia Border Review

the beginning of March. Eleven days later, the Polish government, after introducing a state of
epidemic risk, practically closed the border, suspending passenger train and bus connections
between both states and limiting the number of crossing points available for private cars to six,and leaving some others open for pedestrians. This immediately resulted in enormous traffic
jams on the highways and queues of Poles trying to enter Poland on foot. The protests of lorry
drivers and local inhabitants resulted in more crossing points being opened and simplified border formalities.
The real problem for the border actors started, however, when on March 27, 2020,
the Polish government banned border crossings, requiring a 14-day quarantine for returnees,
including cross-border commuters (Bangel & Vooren 2020). This has heavily affected the local
cross-border economy – especially shopping and services and, more importantly, labor relations.
About 150,000 Poles working on the German side of the border, and numerous German enterprises employing them, were cut off from each other. The German regional authorities reacted
to the problem immediately, by offering financial assistance to Poles in order to encourage themto stay on the German side. However, high levels of uncertainty about further developments
made most of them stay on the Polish side. The quarantine provisions introduced in Germany
on April 10 excluded border commuters from this obligation. The end of the month saw massive
protests of Polish cross-border commuters against the de facto closed border, which undermined
their material existence (Ziarek 2020). Their voices were supported by the regional-level leaders of the German Bundesländer, who petitioned the Polish government. Eventually, on May 4,
the Polish government decided to abolish the quarantine for cross-border commuters, thereby
defusing the atmosphere.
The above developments inspire several interesting questions regarding the German-Polish border as an example of internal borders in the EU.
Firstly, about its liminality (understood as a state of transition and “in-between” space)(Schiffauer et al 2018): where and how does it manifest itself? The most affected victims of thesudden pandemic re-bordering were the cross-border commuters and enterprises. This madethe economic ties (and not cultural, identity, or cultural ones) across the border the key indicator of what the “third space” on the German-Polish border is. Long-lasting efforts to createa cross-border community based on mutual knowledge and understanding – as present in EU
programs and postulated by academics in constructivist logics – did not result in visible effects
under the circumstances of the crisis. The actors involved in functional cross-border interactions were the most vocal in attempts to overcome the sudden and unexpected isolation. Whenobserving the reaction to the border closing and asking if there is a cross-border community,
the answer would be – that yes, there is one. But it is, above all, a community of (economic)
interests, not a community with a cross-border territorial identity.
Secondly, regarding the permeability of borders: who negotiates and decides, and how?

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Jarosław Jańczak

During the crisis, the Polish central authorities used border closing as a tool of protection.
Exclusive territorial control served as both a practical and symbolic instrument of taking responsibility and the lead in overcoming the epidemic crisis. But the Polish commuters werethe most active actors in opposing central decisions, alongside the German regional authorities
that actively proposed and implemented solutions enabling Polish labor to remain in the German labor market. Local Polish and regional German actors managed to influence the central
institutions and increased their sensitivity to the problems of the peripheries, embodying a formof multi-level governance in its (asymmetric) cross-border form. Still, the argument related toeconomic stagnation seemed to be the most persuasive.
Thirdly, about the durability of the border: what is the real and current purpose ofborders in state structures? At the time of the corona-crisis, it was, at least in Warsaw, a sovereign-territorial vision of central control over space that clashed with functionally oriented
arguments, which could be reduced to economic activities determining the satisfaction of basic
needs.
The pandemic is still affecting cross-border life on the German-Polish border. One of
the realistic scenarios is that it may, together with a second wave (or later waves), cause further problems in the future. The question is what the situation has revealed about the borderand cross-border cooperation on the German-Polish border, and whether any alternative forms
should be proposed. It seems that market forces are the most dominant in creating a cross-border reality, toghether with the (neo)functional links operating as cross-border fibers linking bothsides. On the one hand, this is not what many cross-border cooperation supporters or scholars
observing this border dream about, but this is possibly the firmest base for cross-border cooperation that has been created over the last three decades, and should be appreciated as anachievement. Moreover, the border itself is much more sensitive than expected. The long-lasting stability and one-dimensional perception of the integration process (although underminedby border restrictions during the immigration crisis or Brexit) had eliminated hard re-borderingfrom realistic scenarios in the minds of most of borderlanders. Finally, border areas need to be
more vocal in articulating their interest vis-à-vis central authorities. Their future activities will
determine whether they become an element of multi-level governance in its cross-border form,
or whether they end up (again) as the interface of the state, with their main role being to protect
the mainland.

11Eurasia Border Review

A lesson for Northeast Asia(?)
As announced in the introductory section, brief overview of the re-bordering tendencies in the EU in the first half of 2020 is intended to offer lessons for Northeast Asia. As presented, borders in Europe are open, first of all, to the citizens of EU member states, allowing themto freely circulate across the continent. Similarly, because of the common market, the exchangeof goods is not limited by borders either in physical or legal form. Additionally, European states
are among the top destinations in international tourism, and the absence of borders is one of
the constituting elements of EU openness policy. A similar borderlessness is not the case in
East Asia – no similar economic or human border-free area exists there. Additionally, many of
the states are islands or semi-islands, which determines a specific level of isolation (Salomon
2020b). What can be learned then? It seems that still some elements of similar processes canbe observed there. They are related to the economic relevance of borders’ liminality, the roleof central authorities versus. other actors in determining border permeability and the borders’protective role determining their durability. Testing developments in East Asia can identify interesting regularities similar to European ones:
Firstly, the meaning of borders is deeply rooted in (conflictive) historical legacies andtrust-sensitive pandemic relations, as manifested by Japan and South Korea. Japan’s ban on
visitors from South Korea (a 14-day quarantine and suspension of the visa waiver program) on
March 5 became quickly politicized and resulted in a political debate there and similar restrictions (suspension of the visa free program). Under circumstances defined by earlier tensions
at the diplomatic and economic levels (caused by Second World War legacies), grassroot exchanges were considered relevant (Nikkei Editorial 2020), especially after January 2020 when
the Korean President and Japanese Prime Minister spoke of “closest neighbor” and “most important neighbors” (Gibson 2020) in an attempt to resolve a two year-long crisis in mutual relations. Covid-19 deepened mutual tensions again. South Korea accused Japan of a non-scientificapproach (Nishimura 2020) and criticized Japan’s lack of consultation on the issue (Harding &White 2020). Re-bordering quickly became a highly politicized issue (Kasulis 2020). Mutual
distrust became visible in contesting the anti-pandemic methods applied by the other state andthe quality of medical equipment produced, as visible in the following weeks (New Straits
Times 2020). Distrust between South Korea and Japan continued in May (The Asahi Simbun2020).
Secondly, economic border openness in the region was undermined, as demonstrated
by the Japanese reaction towards China. Japan has been considering relocation of its industrial
production from China back to its own territory as a key element of strategic security and supply
chains. Apart from political declarations, a multi-billion US dollar package has been offered toJapanese companies to assist them in such a strategy (Zhigang 2020). National interest seems to

12Jarosław Jańczak

be emphasized in Japan at the expense of the previously dominant regional coordination basedon multilateral principles (Zhigang 2020).
Thirdly, the creation of regional potential for economic and political de-bordering isvisible in Chinese policy towards states of the region. Given worsening relations with the UnitedStates and Australia, China aims at improving relations with Japan and South Korea (Tachikawa 2020). Relations between China and Japan at the very beginning of the corona-crisis wereplayed according to the principle of friendly relations. Japanese assistance to China with regard
to medical equipment was rapidly repaid, and in the latter, created a narrative of friendly relations between both states. China also adopted a moderate tone commenting on the collision of
the vessels of both states (Japanese military and Chinese fishing ships) near the Diaouyu/Senkaku Islands and new Japanese schoolbooks describing the conflict over this territory at the endof March (Burcu & Wang 2020). In May, another incident regarding the islands was reported
again, but it was not escalated (Chinese Coast Guard vessels chasing Japanese fishing boats).
A softening of the Japanese policy towards China has also been visible (Tachikawa 2020), but
numerous acts (as name changing from Tonoshiro to Tonoshiro Senkaku in April and Chinese
protests) reveal further tensions.

Conclusions
The first reaction to the pandemic observable in these re-bordering tendencies suggeststhat both people and states seem to prefer their own security over cooperation with others (Akiyama 2020). Jan Zielonka claims that the pandemic has undermined three compromises forming the contemporary (Western) world, namely individual freedoms, the concept of community
and the market model, in order to combat Covid-19. All three are manifested in re-borderingand may have consequences in other regions, including East Asia. With regard to individual
freedoms, the question is if people are prepared to accept mobility restrictions, or limitations
on political rights? At the community level, the question is who is “us” and if this is again (andprimarily) nation states forming the key reference point for solving problems. What about regional “togetherness”? With regards to the market, the issue is based on the domination of theprivate sector over the public one, with the latter, underinvested and underestimated, eventually
made responsible for solving the crisis (Zielonka 2020). All this leads to the question of whether
the pandemic will change the European model and make it more collective, national and public
sector-oriented – reversing (or at least modifying) the recent decades of cultural, political andeconomic developments in the continent? And what does this mean for other global regions?
At the individual level, the question is if global citizens – using the opportunities offered by a borderless world – will also, after the pandemic, be trapped “inside closed nation

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Eurasia Border Review

states surrounded by contradictory new walls and old borders” (Calzada 2020). At the statelevel, as Jaume Castan Pinos and Steven M. Radil point out, re-bordering has been used “to‘shield’ the state and its citizens from a virus that is, in many cases, portrayed as a foreign
invader” (Castan Pinos & Radil 2020). Epidemic risk has become one of the key elements ofnational security. At the border-reflection level, the conclusion is that even if border controls(and other physical markings of a border) are absent, the border itself is still there because states(still) do exist – both for people and goods. Economic crises, epidemic crises, and the crises of
democracy – all use borders (Castan Pinos & Radil 2020) and are manifested through borders.
This creates an interesting research perspective – to understand what is happening inside, one
needs to understand how the edges are structured.

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Q&A

Q&A
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Okay, thank you very much for a fascinating special lecture, Prof. Janczak. Based on yourspecial lecture, we can now discuss how COVID 19 and the global pandemic have affected the Northeast
Asian community and the rest of international society. I believe that it is important to compare regional
responses from an interdisciplinary perspective; we have a lot of scholars from different parts of theworld today. We will now turn to our distinguished commentator, Prof. Suzuki. Prof. Suzuki, now you
have the floor. Please could you give your comments in 10 minutes or so.
Kazuto Suzuki:
Ten minutes, okay. Prof. Janczak, thank you very much. It was a very, very interesting
discussion and very interesting paper. My name is Kazuto Suzuki. I’ve long been working on European
affairs. I did my Ph.D. study in the Sussex European Institute at the University of Sussex, where I wasworking with Prof. Helen Wallace. So I have some basic understanding of what European integrationmeans and how Schengen works.
A good paper always has a lot of interesting points to discuss. One of the issues I would liketo discuss with you is whether it is really the borders of the sovereign state that matter? I think you
mentioned that the border divides who is us and who is them, and I think that is true. But given the
pandemic situation, there are a number of places, for example, currently certain states in the UnitedStates, like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which are demanding that visitors from otherstates, other states in United States, self-quarantine for 14 days. Cities in the UK like Leicester is now
shutdown while other cities in the vicinity are not.
There are borders, which are not necessarily lines of separation based on political units,
like sovereign states. They may be distinguished as cities, states, regions, you name it. You have theunit of community and you try to protect the community, which is not necessarily a state. So, should
we understand this pandemic situation as the end of the sovereign borderless situation or is it just a
temporary measure to distinguish communities, which are not necessarily sovereign states but which arepolitical units. So, that’s one of the questions.
The second question I’d like to ask is to what extent will the economy overcome the fear of
spreading disease. For example, there are many countries, including Europe and United States as wellas Japan, where there are always tensions between political demands for lockdown and shutting borders
down, and the pressure to reopen the economy and reopen the border.
Currently, from yesterday, July 1st, the EU is now accepting visitors from 14 countries, and thisis definitely because of the tourist industry. The industry is in dire straits, and they need foreign visitors
to bring their cash into the European Union. How do you measure this pressure from the economy
against the fear of spreading disease? This, of course, is the primary factor in making decisions on how
DOI: 10.14943/ebr.11.17

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Eurasia Border Review

to close borders or who can cross borders. For example, currently visitors from 14 countries including
Japan are allowed to go into the EU but not from Russia, not from United States, not from Brazil. So,
there are a number of cases in which there is a distinction between who is allowed in and who is not. The
EU makes a sovereign decision to reopen the border. It’s a semi-transparent border as a figure of speech.
What is also interesting is that the EU regards, you know, the state as a unit, because you can
only check a passport to identify where he or she comes from. Whether you are from the states of New
York or Texas or California or Florida can’t really be distinguished if you are coming from the UnitedStates and have a US passport. Yet, the different levels of infection mean that this matters. If you arefrom New York, you are fine. If you are coming from Florida, you are not. If that is the case, it is also aquestion of borders, not just separating you and them, but also how to identify who they are. There areborders outside. So, let’s call these third-party borders, that it’s not about you and others, but it’s about
distinguishing A and B from outside. It is very interesting that this COVID-19 case is creating this sortof situation where you distinguish the people from their affiliation to the state. That was also a very
interesting point that can be made.
The third point is the crisis of democracy, and it is certainly true that we appear to be in the midstof a crisis of democracy, of populism, et cetera. However, I also think it is interesting that the definitionof us and them is based on the democratic system. You are a person who has a vote in this territory, forthe government of this territory. If you are Polish, you cannot vote in the German election. You can only
vote in the Polish election, even if you are a cross-border resident and work in Germany. Of course, if
you are talking about the regional municipal election or European Parliament election, that’s a different
story, but when it comes to the national politics, still nationality is closely tied with democracy. In thatsense, when the state re-borders, that may have implications: a re-definition or reemphasis on who you
are and which political community you belong to. Interestingly, it is the physical distancing of closing
the border that will refresh your sense of belonging within the state system. In that sense, it is interesting
to see that you mentioned about functionalism, or neo-functionalism. I think one of the key issues about
the discussion of neo-functionalism was the shift of loyalty to a higher political entity but at the end of
the day, this re-bordering will remind you that you are still defined by the national level. You have to live
together through national level politics. So, that is the third point. I have plenty of other smaller points
to make but I’ll stop here for the moment.
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Okay, thank you very much for your comments, Prof. Suzuki. There will be questions from thefloor, I think, so before Prof. Janczak replies to his comments, I’d like to collect a couple. Professor Chi?
Naomi Chi:
Dr. Janczak, hello, it’s nice to see you. Thank you for joining us today. It was a really interestingpresentation, thank you. I’d like you to expand a little because you went through the slides quite quickly.

18

Q&A

I just wanted you to elaborate on one point. I was quite interested in the East-West divide, why is it that
there are a lot more cases in the Western side of Europe, rather than the Eastern side of European. Thisof course coincides with the Iron Curtain, so if you could elaborate on that point, that would be great,
thanks.
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Thank you, Naomi-san. So, just the one question from the floor? Okay. Prof. Janczak, pleaseengage with those points from Prof. Suzuki and Prof. Chi.
Jarosław Janczak:
Yes, think you very much for all the questions and comments. First, let me try to answer orreact to them in the sequence in which they were asked, with one small exception. Prof. Suzuki, thefirst question is about: is it only state borders, or are there other territorial units that are experiencing orcontributing to this movement towards re-bordering?
Let me answer using two or three arguments. The first one is that when the pandemic started in
East Asia, in China, and then spread to the region, the first reaction in the European public was that rebordering or closing borders, of states limiting mobility to that extent, would be absolutely unacceptable
in Europe. But a mere month later, seemingly to everyone’s surprise, Europeans did the same or evenmore with regards to what tools were used and how they were employed. There are of course numerous
actors involved in re-bordering processes. Indeed, there are cities that are no-go zones because of thepandemic and so on. But still my key argument here would be that usually it is the states who are
deciding what borders are set. At the end of the day, except in states where the political system is afederal one, like Germany, where the Länder, the regions, have some competence to determine how todeal with borders with regard to permeability there is a central authority decides that a specific city or
region will be the one that you cannot enter or you cannot leave.
However, we have at least two interesting developments within this logic. The first one wassomething I also mentioned as an aside in the paper which is that sometimes, it is other states that
determine which territorial units in a given state are affected by restrictions. Political decisions taken
within one state have serious consequences for who is entitled to do what in another state. Just as an
example, the Polish-Czech border was closed for some weeks. Then both sides decided they would let
the other’s nationals circulate across the border. However, the Czech authorities said that Poles withpermanent residence in the region of Upper Silesia, which was experiencing the most severe outbreak in
Poland, were not allowed to enter Czech Republic. It is actually the Czech central authorities who grant
specific freedoms to Polish citizens depending where their permanent residence is.
We also see the opposite. At the Polish-German border, the situation was very interesting,just maybe two sentences on that, because the border was initially closed by the central authorities.
Generally, on the German side, the commuters are from Poland, there are about 150,000 Poles – also19

Eurasia Border Review

some Germans, but mainly Poles - living on the Polish side of the border, and commuting every day totheir workplaces on the German side of the border. The distances are short and so on. Both sides closed
the border but the German side said, okay but cross-border commuters they can still circulate freely, buton the Polish side there is a 14 day quarantine obligation. So, you can go to work in Germany, you can
go back to your home to Poland, but then you have to stay in Poland at your apartment for 14 days, so
you cannot go back the next day. So what happened? People started to protest. The commuters began
directing petitions to the Polish central authorities, but at the same time German entrepreneurs started
to petition regional authorities in Germany, who were then petitioning the Polish central authorities.
So we see suddenly a multilevel structure where, with regards the competence to decide, the border isclosed or the border is open on the Polish side because of the central authorities, and the relations thatexist between the people, the commuters, regional authorities in Germany, the Polish central authorities,
and so on.
To make a long story short, I would still say that it is national and federal states and regional
authorities that retain control over territory, executing exclusive competence in controlling humanmobility. However, we are seeing signs that multilevel governance is in there. There are numerous
actors who can at least try to influence the final decision. In the Polish-German border case, they weresuccessful, because this quarantine obligation was ultimately abolished.
With regard to economic depression as a factor that overrides fear of the pandemic, yes,
there is also a set of interesting developments. First of all, as you might know, what I presented is a
general tendency in Europe, but there have been some exceptions, like the U.K. at the very beginningof the pandemic or Sweden until today. Swedes, or the Swedish government, basically said we aregoing to control pandemic, not to stop the pandemic. So almost no restrictions, especially related toeconomic activities, have been imposed on society. They call it a trust-based approach, where people
are encouraged to behave themselves, but this resulted in an increase in the number of victims andthen the neighboring states Finland and Denmark closed their borders with Sweden. So, at the endof the day, you don’t need to close your own borders to be trapped. Sometimes, it is somebody else’s
decision but still the problem is that, I would say, we don’t know if closing borders in order to suspend
economic processes have been or are a good decision or a bad decision. How can you approach itmethodologically, to calculate, for example, how many people died because of the pandemic per million
inhabitants? But on the other hand, and this is the argument in many states, one could say, but how many
will die because the economy is doing not as good as it did, and, consequently, the healthcare system isweaker, many businesses bankrupted, etc. Many people will no longer be offered social assistance andmany, many other things. Indeed, there is a general tendency, most politicians say, we cannot afford asecond lockdown, so even if there is a second wave, we cannot afford it.
Here, I would now like to somehow combine this question with what Prof. Chi asked about
the East-West division. Because this is actually a question about the phantom border that appeared as a
topic in the previous session as well. Definitely, the number of deaths is visibly much, much smaller in

20

Q&A

what used to be the Eastern camp than what used to be the Western Europe.
Well, there are at least two explanations for how this no longer existing border between two
systems is still influencing what is happening there? The first point, well, the eastern part of the European
Union is still much less developed. If it is less developed, it means that its healthcare capacity is much
more limited in comparison to what is the case in Western Europe. If this is the case, and both public
opinion and political elites are aware of this fact, then they have reacted differently. So, instead of
waiting for the number of people infected to grow and be sent to hospitals and so on, the decision was,well we cannot afford having hundreds of thousands of infected people because we simply do not haveenough emergency units prepared to take care of them. As a result, the states of Eastern Europe almost
immediately closed their borders, suspending university education, closing schools and so on, as soon
as the first cases appeared within their borders. On the other hand, the Western European states, theywaited, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. In some cases, like in Germany, the number of victims ishigh but it is somehow under control, whereas for some like Italy or Spain, there were moments where
it was a real national disaster.
There is also another hypothesis, very interesting but just a hypothesis, nobody can reallyconfirm it yet. In the eastern camp, vaccination policy between 1945 and today was different than inWestern Europe. In central and eastern parts of the continent, starting from the post-war time, andbecause of the communist system, vaccinations were obligatory. We have actually nowadays practicallyeveryone immune to a wide spectrum of diseases. We are talking about three or four generations of people
who were immune. Whereas in Western Europe, for different reasons, different climatic conditions,different perception of individual freedoms and so on, they usually were just recommended to people.
This more medical hypothesis, well, this is actually the phantom border across the continent. East of the
Berlin Wall medical healthcare or the vaccination policy resulted in different immunity levels than seenin the western part of the continent. Again, I’m not able to prove it or disprove it. I’m just putting it out
there. You can easily see where the east-west border was located.
Then there are still two short remarks. About identifying who is them and who is us according
to what criteria and so on; it is there in the paper, in the form of the concept of borders in motion.
The concepts of liminality, permeability and durability of borders together with the general questions
to which they give rise, who actually in Europe is negotiating borders, deciding borders? Where theborders are to be located, what is to be the border region and so on. I would still believe that it is nation
states, after at least two, three decades of making borders more fuzzy that has decided to retake control
and retake responsibility, but I would also insist on this occurring in competition with other actors, ofmultilevel governance being present there.
The question is especially with regard to the concept of liminality. If we do have a third space,you would have a space in between states, understood either literally or more figuratively. Remember,for example, the case of the cross-border commuters I noted at the Polish-German border, and thenrecognize that there are about 2 million of such people generally in Europe, so maybe they do form a sort21Eurasia Border Reviewof third space. They are the ones who cannot afford to agree with re-bordering because it undermines thevery basis of their everyday material existence.
If this is the case, this has another interesting set of consequences for the logic of European
integration processes. What the European spirit is about is normative dimensions. It’s about looking
for similarities, looking for common identities, but at the end of the day there are groups, as again the
Polish-German case proves, which do not feel a togetherness with people living on their side of theborder because they have economic interests on the other side of the border. So those working acrossborders were protesting, were against re-bordering, not because of identity but because of money. Thismeans that maybe we need to revise the whole logic of international integration where interests and awhole neo-functional logics are the key driving forces, despite the fact that many politicians and mostscholars have been asserting for decades that it’s about something more. I think that has been a longanswer, thank you.
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Okay, thank you very much. We have 10 minutes more, so if anyone from the floor has anyquestions or comments?
Kazuto Suzuki:
Can I make a comment on what Prof. Janczak said?
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Sure.
Kazuto Suzuki:
Thank you very much for your comment and I think it was very useful, very fruitful. The
points that you made about the cross-border workers, I think this is an interesting case, and that on the
one hand people are working and living where they are for economic reasons. You are living in Poland
and commuting to Germany because you are Polish and you have the attachment to the Poland. But,
also you want to gain money by working in Germany. The European Union, or European integration,
has been driven by not just identity, and not just neo-functionalist causes, but also a number of otherfactors, including prosperity or the creation the job opportunities. The whole idea of the single market
is all about finding a new place to work. It happens to be cross-border, but at the end of the day, it is
the objective of the single market. I think that is not surprising. I think the fact that as a result of their
movement the Polish workers were exempted from the 14-day quarantine was very interesting.
I think one of the questions or thoughts coming to my mind is: “What would be the future of
the European Union after this pandemic?” In some cases, you reestablish the concept of a trans-border
single market logic, and people are going back to normal but in some cases, like Sweden, are very

22

Q&A

interesting. For instance, Sweden opens its border but the countries around it close theirs. Even after theEuropean Union allows free movement across its internal borders, Sweden remains an exception due tothe surge of cases. What is interesting is that Denmark allows their people to go to Sweden and comeback without any quarantine but those people who are living in Sweden are required to have a two-weekquarantine if they enter in Denmark, so that’s the double standard.
If these sorts of measures sporadically remain, differing from one place to another, and if
there is no unified or uniform measures being introduced, how will this affect the future of European
integration? It is hard to see because, on the one hand, the driving force of the single market andEuropean integration is still there, despite the current anti-EU sentiments including BREXIT; still, there
are reasons for reestablishing a single market, and there are reasons why people would want to go backto the single market. So, I think the European Union per se is not going to be dismantled because ofthis. But there are some spots, like Sweden, that can be identified as weakest links in the European
Union as a whole. This is a sort of unevenness. In the past, there was unevenness, as well. For example,
Denmark is not a member of the Euro, and Britain is now out of the EU but then was out of Schengen.
This kind of unevenness existed, but it was largely due to the voluntary decisions of states. But I thinkin the case of Sweden, it is a consequence of the treatment of Sweden by other countries. So, it’s a sortof reestablishment of de facto borders even though Sweden is voluntarily opening its border. I think thismay be an interesting subject to discuss in the future. I will just raise it here.
Fuminori Kawakubo:
Okay, please make it short Prof. Janczak, time is running out. Just a short reply.
Jarosław Janczak:
Thank you very much for those remarks. Then I will just answer with three key arguments
responding to those remarks. First of all, one of the concepts is, what is the internal dynamism of theEuropean project. One idea says that the EU has been always developing because of various challenges
and crisis. So, those who study the European Union, especially those closer to neo-functional logics,
tend to think about development using the spillover model; the longer we integrate, the more integrated
we are. It’s a linear approach. But then if we take a look at the comments made by the neo-neofunctionalists, no it’s not aligned; it’s always a wave that is on average somehow a kind of line that is
adding more and more to the integration project. Development problems regress, then progress again,
and so on and so on.
The current situation including, for example, the case of Sweden, can be considered from thisperspective. Maybe it is just another crisis, another spillback in the neo neo-functional logics. Sooner
or later, as always happens, it will result in further acceleration. So from the perspective of this logic,
borders will have to be reopened. There is no other solution, and maybe even we will then develop better
solutions, more efficient mechanisms, on how to avoid similar problems in the future.

23

Eurasia Border Review

Second, I would say that we appreciate what we have before it turns into what we had. If wethink about the very origins of the European project, it’s actually about overcoming a conflictive past.
It’s that the tragedy of the Second World War must never again be repeated in Europe. This is what
Europeans believed several decades ago. But now we have a third generation living in this Europe. A
generation for whom conflict, war, victims and so on, is black magic, they have never experienced it. It
is something that is observable on TV, but TV, on the other hand, provides you with pictures that well,maybe they are false, maybe they are true, what is the difference between news and soap opera and soon? Well, it is not the real, but then the pandemic or BREXIT happens. By the way, today, after finallyrealizing what BREXIT means for most of the Brits, the support level for leaving the Union is only
30 something percent. My argument is simply that sometimes, when living in comfortable conditions
where the reality that surrounds you and you take advantage of, which you consider as something
natural, when this world is somehow destroyed then you start appreciating what you had.
Then finally some of your remarks were touching on, I would say, another interesting problem,
about the concept of flexible integration. This is a problem to every integration project, and which theEuropean Union has been specifically discussing for a number of years. To have been a successfulproject, do we need everyone to follow the same rules, or can we achieve our aim with different
solutions, styles, make different provisions and so on. Actually, again the European Union has always
been a kind of compromise between the two. Formally, every new member state had to follow the actof complying—there is no other option. On the other hand, Britain has never been in the SchengenZone, and you mentioned Denmark with it several provisions. So, this discussion is definitely an open
one. There are states that opt for more integration as the answer to the pandemic crisis, especially
Germany but recently also France. They think that only when they stay together, the borders are open
and they collaborate closely— they can succeed. They can overcome difficulties. However, the questionis how trustworthy these ideas are after the beginning of the pandemic and the early “selfish” policy ofGermany? Later of course, Germany was accepting patients, in fact, patients from both Italy and France
were in its hospitals, on German territory, just to demonstrate that it was just a temporary issue of mutual
trust. But other states might say, no, maybe we need less integration, we need more exceptions, whichmight lead to more non-temporary limitations in specific integration areas.

24About the Contributors
Jarosław JAŃCZAK is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relationsin the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland,
and also at the Department of European Studies in the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences,
European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. For many years he was associatedwith the Polish-German cross-border research and teaching institute Collegium Polonicum. His
academic interests focus on borders and border areas within the context of integration processes.
In particular, they cover issues of debordering and rebordering, cross-border governance, regional
integration on the micro-scale, and cross-border cooperation. Recent publications include: JarosławJańczak, “Central European Cross-border Towns: An Overview”, in John Gerrard and Ekaterina
Mikhailova (eds.), Twin Cities. Urban Communities, Borders and Relationships over Time (London:
Routledge, 2019); Jarosław Jańczak (ed.), Old Borders – New Challenges, New Borders – Old
Challenges. De-Bordering and Re-Bordering in Contemporary Europe (Berlin: Logos Verlag,2019); Jarosław Jańczak, “Construction and Deconstruction of the Borders of (Re)Integration
Projects in Eurasia: The Western and Eastern ’Edges’ of Russia”, Acta Slavica Iaponica 40 (2019).
Kazuto SUZUKI is Professor of Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, Japan.
He graduated in International Relations from Ritsumeikan University, and received his Ph.D. from theSussex European Institute, University of Sussex, UK. He worked as an assistant researcher at the Fondation
pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) in Paris, France and as Associate Professor at the University ofTsukuba from 2000 to 2008, before moving to Hokkaido University, where he was Professor until
September 2020. He spent 2012-2013 as a visiting researcher at Woodrow Wilson School of Public andInternational Affairs at Princeton University. He served as an expert in the Panel of Experts on the Iranian
Sanction Committee under the United Nations Security Council from 2013 to July 2015, and as Presidentof the Japan Association of International Security and Trade. His research focuses on the intersectionof science/technology and international relations; particular areas of interest include space policy, nonproliferation, export control and sanctions. His work includes Space and International Politics (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 2011, in Japanese, awarded Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities), Policy
Logics and Institutions of European Space Collaboration (Farnham: Ashgate, 2003) and many others.
Fuminori KAWAKUBO is Professor of Political Science at Chuo Gakuin University in Chiba,
Japan. He was a Visiting Researcher at San Diego State University, US (April 2019-March 2020). He
lectures in IR, political theory, and peace studies, and his research centers on the border security ofNorth America in a post 9/11 context together with theoretical considerations in border studies. Recent
publications include: “Privatizing border security: Emergence of the ‘border-industrial complex’ and its

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implications,” Public Voices Journal XVII:1 (2020), “Border Walls and Teichopolitics,” Gendaishiso 47:5,(April 2019, in Japanese), “Border Security Governance in North America: A Clue to the Formation and
Failure of ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)’,” Japan Border Review 9 (2019,
in Japanese), and “The Transformation of Border Security Practices from Fixed Borders to New Modalities
and Privatization: From the Perspective of Critical Border Studies,” Eurasia Border Review 8 (2017).

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