Contested Sovereignties: Legitimacy, Power, and the Negotiation of Postcolonial Borders

This special issue brings together scholars who explore the consequences of the postcolonial political-economic world system, illuminating how borders are made, contested, and lived in different contexts. Collectively, these contributions move beyond descriptive accounts of postcolonial borders to investigate their ongoing production through power, economy, and mobility. I argue, and the articles in this issue illustrate, that postcolonial states continue to grapple with the location and (in)permeability of inter-state borders, a process that informs states' position in the global economy and shapes the politics of citizenship. Furthermore, these state dynamics are embedded in broader transnational processes, as borders are transcended by donors, NGOs, social movements, diasporas, and (il)licit economic networks that frequently navigate and contest the formal boundaries of state power. In sum, borders are far less fixed than they are often portrayed; they are continually reshaped and negotiated amid securitization, economic dependencies, and shifting geopolitical alliances. The articles in this issue invite readers to rethink borders not as static boundaries but as dynamic processes that reflect the enduring entanglements of sovereignty, legitimacy, and belonging in the postcolonial world.