Frontiers and Politics. From Polis to Empire, State and the European Union
Frontiers and Politics. From Polis to Empire, State and the European Union

Summary/Abstract: This article is dedicated to the exploration of the concept of frontier, particularly in its relation to power and to political community. It is organised in four parts, each searching to identify the fundamental characteristics of the model of political organisation subjacent to the major western historical periods, how they perceive, both human nature and social integration, as well as the type of political community they require and the demands they place upon the respective frontiers. The argument is that political communities of different nature – poleis, empires, guilds, counties, dukedoms, free cities, sovereign states – require frontiers equally differentiated. In a final section, the article looks at the contemporary world, at European integration, in particular, and the perforation of traditional state frontiers that we witness, concluding that frontiers continue to be required, albeit of a new nature, as different, today, from those proposed by modernity as these were from their medieval counterparts.

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