From Barriers to Abuse
Border Hardening and Torture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19214765 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gino Pauselli (0000-0002-7497-7354, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, corresponding author), Beth A Simmons (0000-0001-8207-713X, California University of Pennsylvania) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 80 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 324-358 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Organization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-8183 • E-ISSN: 1531-5088 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020818326101350 |
| OpenAlex | W7160426028 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 83 |
Serious human rights violations have commonly been reported in border regions and against migrants. We develop a theory of torture by persons whose job it is to secure the border from irregular entry. We contend that when states commence highly visible and costly border hardening programs, border and immigration officials (BIOs) tend to internalize stringent border security priorities and interpret border barriers as license to enforce the border at all costs. We find that when states start new or extended border walls, torture allegations by BIOs increase. In addition, there is corroborative evidence in the press releases of Europe’s border security agency, Frontex, that attention to security increases and attention to human rights wanes when reporting on situations in states with border walls. Taken together, these results suggest a tension between border hardening and human rights, and an urgent need to critically examine border hardening through a human rights lens
Border Security · Drug trafficking · Human rights · Immigration · Irregular migration · License · Torture · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty
Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners
Amelia II
The Human Costs of Border Control
Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?
STM
Signaling Theory
Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods
Strategic Communication
Border Justice
Borders and Border Walls
Illicit Flows and Criminal Things
The Cingranelli and Richards (Ciri) Human Rights Data Project
Mobilizing for Human Rights
Close encounters of the deadly kind
Why Do Authoritarian Regimes Sign the Convention Against Torture
Does Torture Work? A Sociolegal Assessment of the Practice in Historical and Global Perspective
Border Rules
Irregular border-crossing deaths and gender
Genealogies of Immigration Detention
The Prohibition of Torture as an International Norm of jus cogens and Its Implications for National and Customary Law
Introduction
The MID4 dataset, 2002–2010
Support for torture over time
Why torture
Barriers to Entry
Civil Liberties vs. Security
Reasonable” Force at the U.S.-Mexico Border
The Politics of Exhaustion and the Externalization of British Border Control. An Articulation of a Strategy Designed to Deter, Control and Exclude
The Dialectics of Abolition
Social identity and perceptions of torture
Border militarisation and the re‐articulation of sovereignty
Policing Humanitarian Borderlands
International law, constitutional law, and public support for torture
Feeling at Home in Europe
Banal materiality and the idea of sovereignty
Nationalism and torture
War and Torture as “Just Deserts
Threat Perception and American Support for Torture
Why Do States Build Walls? Political Economy, Security, and Border Stability
Signaling Foreign Policy Interests
Changes in Perceptions of Border Security Influence Desired Levels of Immigration
International Law and Public Attitudes Toward Torture
Political Institutions and Human Rights
Why Physical Barriers Backfire
The Practice and Legitimacy of Border Control
Does Criminalizing Torture Deter Police Torture
The Fortification Dilemma
Border Orientation in a Globalizing World
What Stops the Torture
The Informative Power of Treaty Commitment
Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights
Identifying Ideologues
The Changing Standard of Accountability and the Positive Relationship between Human Rights Treaty Ratification and Compliance
A Tormenting Dilemma
Police empowerment and police militarisation in times of protracted conflict
Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s
The autonomous power of the state
American Policing and the Danger Imperative
Institutionalising the Exception
Teichopolitics
The (in)effectiveness of torture for combating insurgency
Infrastructure and authority at the state's edge
Torture allegations as events data
The Global Mobility Divide
Remote control of migration
An Empirical Evaluation of Explanations for State Repression
Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time
Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes
Institutionalized Police Brutality
The Causes and Consequences of Refugee Flows
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |