Epidemia of Walls in an (Un)free World | Figure for Article 2

The “Great Wall” of America: Historical Opportunities

Fact Sheet: The US-Mexican Border Fence: Major Milestones and Motivations

1945–1952

US Immigration and Naturalisation Service commissions the International Boundary and Water Commission to build 1.5 kilometre of chain-link fencing in strategic areas at Calexico and San Ysidro, in California, and Nogales, in Arizona, compelling illegal migrants to seek crossings in more difficult (desert) terrains.

1994–1996

US Border Patrol installs sensors and stronger fencing in San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas. Operations Hold-the-Line in Texas, Gatekeeper in San Diego and Safeguard in Arizona increase the number of surveillance activities. The combination of the fence and the patrolling activities aims at deterring crossers from entering the United States via unregulated pathways.

2005–2006

The US Department of Homeland Security waivers all legal requirements for expeditious construction of barriers along the border, facilitating the trebling of fences in densely populated urban areas in the American Southwest. In the fall of 2006, the 109th Congress authorises the construction of 700 miles of fencing in rural areas in California and Arizona, with the aim of linking existing urban fences with rural barriers.

2017–Onwards

President Trump proposes the construction of a large, fortified wall along the US-Mexico border during the 2016 presidential campaign. On 25 January 2017, he signs the Executive Order “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” to begin the extension of the border wall. The March 2017 US budget blueprint includes USD 2.6 billion high-priority border security technology and tactical infrastructure. On 3 June 2018, the construction of the San Diego, California, section of the border wall begins, with the aim of rendering the border impermeable.

Size

1,120 km between California and Texas – around a third of the total border length of 3,141 km.

Cost

USD 10 to 20 billion.

Other Issues

Issue no. 9 | March 2021

The Moving Fault Lines of Inequality

Global Challenges

Issue no. 9 | March 2021

The Moving Fault Lines of Inequality

While poverty has been diminishing in absolute terms and relative income has been growing on a global scale for over two centuries, inequality – as measured by instruments such as the Gini coefficient – has been increasing steadily since the early 1980s. With the financial crisis of 2007, the growing digitalisation of the economy and the current pandemic, global inequality has further worsened, seeing the fortunes of the superrich attaining unprecedented levels and revenue concentrating in the top percentiles of societies.

Concurrently to the aggravation of the social fracture, additional fault lines have been opening or hardening along logics of race, gender, ethnicity and religion. Identarian revendications and logics of difference and exclusion have come to complement, compete with or supersede more traditional struggles for equality in a postmodern and neoliberal context that has normalised inequality, homogenised societies and done away with earlier grand narratives and collective agendas.

The consequences of inequality(ies) are dramatic, as reflected in the polarisation and fragmentation of societies, worsening health and mortality indicators, political tensions and violence, a decline in democracy, and mistrust in state institutions. The objective of the current issue of Global Challenges is therefore – by reverting to the analytical tools of social science – to reflect on the causes behind the multifaceted growth of inequality(ies), anticipate their noxious fallouts and explore potential remedies.

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Special Issue no. 1 | June 2020

Politics of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Global Challenges

Special Issue no. 1 | June 2020

Politics of the Coronavirus Pandemic

A pandemic is not just a medical emergency – it is also a political, economic, and social crisis. It implies new challenges for democratic institutions and practices, for citizenship rights and human rights as some of the restrictions on civil liberties put in place by liberal and illiberal democracies may well outlive the coronavirus. This special issue explores some tensions and dilemmas of democracies faced with the current crisis. “Politics of the Coronavirus Pandemics” addresses questions like: Can we speak of a decline in politics during the pandemic? While states have been using the full gamut of their sovereign prerogatives, has the political (temporarily) faded in the face of, for example, “expertise”? What will be the lasting impact of the rule by administrative fiat, and of emergency powers put in place in many countries? What kinds of agenda and instruments of civic activism are likely to emerge given that courts are rarely in session and public protest not permitted due to distancing rules? What are the likely consequences of these reconfigurations for democracy, governance, and welfare systems in the global South and North?

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Issue no. 4 | October 2018

Epidemia of Walls in an (Un)free World

Global Challenges

Issue no. 4 | October 2018

Epidemia of Walls in an (Un)free World

We currently face a baffling paradox. While since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a seemingly inexorable process of globalisation has been foreshadowing a peaceful and frontierless world, the number of walls across the world has been rising at a steady pace. Liberal and open societies buttressed by trade, international law and technological progress were supposed to implacably contribute to the erosion of frontiers and walls between nations. However, in a context of surging populist discourses, securitarian anxieties and identitarian politics as well as concomitant flows of migration alimented by climate change, conflict and poverty, nations have recently started to barricade themselves behind new walls.

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The “Great Wall” of America: Historical Opportunities

Fact Sheet: The US-Mexican Border Fence: Major Milestones and Motivations

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