Pandemics are imbued with the politics of bordering. For centuries, border closures and restrictions on foreign travelers have been the most persistent and pervasive means by which states have responded to global health crises. The ubiquity of these policies is not driven by any clear scientific consensus about their utility in the face of myriad pandemic threats. Instead, we show they are influenced by public opinion and preexisting commitments to invest in the symbols and structures of state efforts to control their borders, a concept we call border orientation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, border orientation was already generally on the rise worldwide. This trend has made it convenient for governments to “contain” the virus by externalizing it, rather than taking costly but ultimately more effective domestic mitigation measures. We argue that the pervasive use of external border controls in the face of the coronavirus reflects growing anxieties about border security in the modern international system. To a great extent, fears relating to border security have become a resource in domestic politics—a finding that does not bode well for designing and implementing effective public health policy.

中文翻译：

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作为边境政治的大流行应对

大流行充满了边境政治。几个世纪以来，边境关闭和对外国游客的限制一直是各国应对全球健康危机的最持久和最普遍的手段。这些政策的普遍性并不是由任何明确的科学共识驱动的，即它们在面对无数大流行威胁时的效用。相反，我们表明他们受到公众舆论和预先存在的承诺的影响，即投资于国家努力控制其边界的象征和结构，我们称之为边界方向. 在 COVID-19 大流行之前，边境导向在全球范围内已经普遍上升。这种趋势使政府可以方便地通过将病毒外部化来“控制”病毒，而不是采取代价高昂但最终更有效的国内缓解措施。我们认为，面对冠状病毒，外部边境管制的普遍使用反映了现代国际体系中对边境安全日益增长的焦虑。在很大程度上，与边境安全有关的担忧已成为国内政治的一种资源——这一发现对于设计和实施有效的公共卫生政策并不是一个好兆头。