Abstract

Border policies have gained a surge of interest from politicians, policymakers, citizens and voters in all corners of the globe in the current millennium. In turn, academia too has turned its interest into systematically studying this increasingly salient political phenomenon. At this stage, however, this topic of study remains theoretically under-founded. The primary objective of this dissertation then is to make several theoretical contributions towards the study of border politics. To this end, my dissertation studies the causes and consequences of state decisions (or non-decisions) to secure their borders from social, political and economic perspectives. I approach this problem primarily through the use of game theory and offer a rich variety of models that isolate different factors of interest within border politics. The different components of the dissertation specifically study (1) the economic relationship between neigbouring states and between states and their borderland citizens, (2) the economic relationship between states and trans-border illicit actors, and (3) the social consequences of stricter versus more open border policies on borderland citizens.

Committee Chair

Randall Calvert

Committee Members

David Carter

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Political Science

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

7-4-2023

Language

English (en)

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