Devolution, delegation, and digitisation
Accountability gaps in fragmented border regimes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7476680 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ben Rosher (0000-0001-5886-8425, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 127 |
| Pages | 103516-103516 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0962-6298 • E-ISSN: 1873-5096 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103516 |
| OpenAlex | W7130879715 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 33 |
Contemporary borders are increasingly fragmented and dispersed, variously through externalisation practices and inwardly through everyday bordering checks. In this paper I pay specific attention to one implication of this condition and ask, what does this fragmentation mean for accountability in contemporary state borders? That is to say, the state is responsible for inscribing its borders, but who is accountable for the effects of the border? Who ensures that the rights of those targeted by the border are honoured, holds the authority to remedy issues that arise from the enactment of the border, and, crucially, can be confronted to honour these obligations? Through examining the EU Settlement Scheme, which has re bordered the UK following Brexit, particularly its operationalisation in Northern Ireland as the only part of the UK that shares a land border with the EU, I demonstrate that fragmentation has allowed for an accountability gap to be introduced into state border regimes by enabling states to distance themselves from accountability for the effects of their border policies across three dimensions: devolution, delegation, and digitisation. The distances produced through this accountability gap do not reduce the state's capacity to control and monitor migrants, but are designed to prevent those who engage with the border from being able to hold the government accountable for any loss of rights suffered through the enactment of the policy
Accountability · Fragmentation (computing · Honour · Settlement (finance · State (computer science · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Irish and British Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Banal bordering
Where are we going to go now?” European Union migrants' experiences of hostility, anxiety, and (non‐)belonging during Brexit
The mediatized border
Borderwork beyond Inside/Outside? Frontex, the Citizen–Detective and the War on Terror
The changing status of European Union nationals in the United Kingdom following Brexit
Towards a post-mathematical topology
The UK’s hostile environment
Wha’s like us? The desecuritisation of migration as ontological security-seeking in Scotland
Where can I get free? Everyday bordering, everyday incarceration
Powerful assemblages
The pivotal position of the Irish border in the UK's withdrawal from the European Union
Coloniality, Race, and Europeanness
Lines in the Sand? Towards an Agenda for Critical Border Studies
State violence against migrant women
Security and Immigration
Biometric borders
The (in)securitization practices of the three universes of EU border control
Beauty and the beast
The deep border
Intersectional Border(ing)s
Picking and Choosing the 'Sovereign' Border
When the exception becomes the rule
Taking People Apart
(Dis)qualified bodies
Critical Border Studies
Racial capitalism and the production of difference in Helsinki and Warsaw
The power of symbolic sanctuary
Theory of the
More Than a Hostile Environment
On the creation of the UK's 'hostile environment
Migrant, interrupted
Counter-Archiving Migration
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |