The externalization of border control in the global South: The cases of Malaysia and Indonesia

Abstract

Existing scholarship highlights the novel approaches and the capacity of northern states to control mass mobility by externalizing the border; outsource their control apparatus to migrant sending and transit countries; process and detain irregular arrivals in offshore locations; and expand the reach of sovereign powers extraterritorially. Significantly, the processes and outcomes of externalization are neither homogeneous nor uncontested. This article seeks to provide critical insights into the divergent nature of border externalization and contributes to a de-centring of northern-centric notions of the state’s role in border control by comparing how border control plays out in Malaysia and Indonesia under Australia’s externalization policy agenda. Their different border control outcomes reflect important intervening factors in the two countries’ internal (domestic political and economic realities; attitudes towards migrants and their control) and external (interstate geo-political relations) environment in shaping the situated meanings and the realities of border security building.