Critical Dictionary on Borders, Cross-Border Cooperation and European Integration

Abstract

This critical dictionary on Borders, Cross-Border Cooperation, and European Integration fills a gap in the scientific literature in border and European studies. In so doing, it pursues three main objectives: first, it establishes a link between the two (as of yet) still relatively unconnected disciplines; second, it provides an interdisciplinary tool for students, researchers, and practitioners, through an overview of theory, terms, forms, actors, and tools of territorial cooperation in Europe which allows for the use of the Critical Dictionary as a practical guide for facilitating the development of neighbourhood relations and the management of cross-border projects; third, the dictionary orientates the traditional topdown approach to European integration by taking into account, not only European Union (EU) institutions and member states, but the links that these institutions and actors have to the multitude of local and regional initiatives which have thus far fed into the process of European integration. It is therefore a first step towards a new decentralized, territorialized approach to European integration, one that looks at integration as a mosaic of bottom-up processes identified by starting from the local and regional level of Europe's borderlands.