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Abstract

Border fortifications have proliferated in recent decades. One prominent rationale given for fortifying the border is to limit illegal incursions, but how successful are fortifications at this task? Current theories fail to account for the fact that illicit actors may be strategic in their choices in order to influence state policies. I accommodate this strategic behaviour in a formal model to demonstrate that this capacity for strategy means that border fortifications are rarely optimal. In the model, states can learn the capacities of illicit actors through the latter’s past transgressions to inform border security policy. Anticipating this, illicit actors may moderate their actions to discourage fortifications. States therefore only secure their borders when illicit actors are powerful enough such that the threat of fortifications does not deter them into moderation. This reveals an inefficiency in border security that gives new insight into the dynamics of border politics.