Towards a Schmittian Theory of Border Hardening: Nomos, Sovereignty, Political Unity and Barriers in the Middle East
Abstract
The presented paper revisits the theory of Carl Schmitt from the perspective of border barrier building and applies it to three cases of barriers in the Middle East. It firstly introduces the term nomos as a territorial order that is the basis for all law and is particular to each state.
Then, it argues that states build border barriers in order to create or maintain this nomos while facing challenges from hard-to-identify enemies. The process-tracing analysis of the events leading up to a construction of a border barrier and its immediate outcomes in the cases of Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey concludes that these border barriers were built in order to help create or protect the nomos, both through delimitation of space and through identification of enemies challenging it.
The outcome of this research suggests that the Schmittian theory might be useful in the analysis of the border barrier construction, but further research is needed to confirm this.