Border Permeability And Drivers Of Cross-Border Cooperation In The Turkish And Eu Border Region

Abstract

<p>With the impact of globalization, increasing flows of social, economic and political relations have begun to redefine the state borders which causes the rising of new border identities. By this redefinition process, European Union (EU)'s external wall forming the boundaries with the neighbourhood countries have also begun to be rebuilt at local and regional level. Throughout this process, new frontier identities are formed with a degree of permeability where the state’s security policies act as the prior issue in the international relations.</p><p> </p><p>Border permeability, that contains grey values varying from closeness to full openness, defines the degree of permeability according to the size, shape and direction of the flows. Dynamic feature of the flows converts border space into a subject of continuous social, economic and political movement. In such places, actors leading the flows appear as the basic elements of permeability and they can be described as economic, political and socio-cultural agents. At the edge of supranational and national border, actors use networks, which are connected to both local and regional levels, in order to build up cross-border cooperation in different aspects. In this context, border regions transform into a space, where local actors develop methods to overcome the restrictiveness of constraints for the flows among the supranational and the national borders.</p><p> </p><p>This paper aims to evaluate the permeability between EU supranational border and Turkish national border and to define the new cross-border cooperation formed by the social, economic and political flows of the actors. In this context, the permeability and the new border identity will be assessed through three type of administrative body (supranational, national EU and national non-EU) by using the national and local level data supported by EU cross-border programmes and by in-depth interviews conducted at various actors including national institutions, local organizations and NGOs in Turkey.</p>