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Border Games: Policing the U.S.Mexico Divide (3rd edn)

Online ISBN:
9781501765803
Print ISBN:
9781501765773
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

Border Games: Policing the U.S.Mexico Divide (3rd edn)

Peter Andreas
Peter Andreas
Brown University
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Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
15 October 2022
Online ISBN:
9781501765803
Print ISBN:
9781501765773
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

This third edition charts the rise and transformation in policing the flow of drugs and migrants across the US–Mexico border. Recent border crackdowns and wall-building campaigns, the book argues, are not unprecedented. Rather, they are the outcome of an escalatory dynamic already in motion—but now played out on a far bigger stage, with higher stakes, and in new security and political contexts. Focusing on the power of symbolic politics and policy feedback effects, the book traces the logic behind such build up. Border policing is an attractive political mechanism for handling the often unintended consequences of past policy choices, signaling a commitment to territorial integrity and projecting an image of territorial authority. Yet its negative aftermath is not only frequently glossed over; it also fuels further escalation. With new chapters on the border policies of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, the book continues to help readers grasp how the busiest border in the world is also one of the most fortified, and why it plays such a complicated and contentious role in both domestic politics and US–Mexico relations.

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