Rethinking the North American frontier after 9/11
Abstract This paper is primarily concerned with changes to the border dividing Canada from the U.S. after 9/11. Two arguments are made: that these changes were sufficiently profound to warrant a re‐conceptualization of what constitutes a border and how it operates; and that for Canadians, border relations with the U.S. have become a highly complex, multifaceted business managed both horizontally and vertically by a full range of governments and their various departments on both sides of the border. In policy terms, the line drawn to distinguish foreign from domestic policy has become decidedly blurred, melding into what some have called the “intermestic.” In order to understand these changes, it is necessary to contextualize them. The method chosen is to begin by examining the changes that occurred in Europe and North America in the period after the cold war, with an emphasis on matters such as the process of democratization, the significance of peace dividends, new security paradigms, the forces of globa...