Abstract
Border regions and trans-border mobility: Slovakia in economic transition, Reg. Studies 35, 831-846. This paper analyses the reproduction of border region inequalities in Slovakia, between the later period of state socialism and the post 1989 transition. The 'winners' and 'losers' are largely determined by changing patterns of national and international trade, investment and labour migration in Slovakia after 1989. The paper considers the extent to which regions and households can contest their position within these trajectories through trans-border personal mobility. It analyses the double-faced nature of borders which constitute both economic opportunities and barriers for border regions. In particular, it considers how trans-border arbitrage practices and labour flows benefit individuals and regions. While these may modify border region disparities, their overall impacts are limited and differentiated, and tend to reinforce the economic dynamism of the western regions. In part, such trans-border economic relationships are constrained by the uneven and incomplete institutional and market reforms in Central and Eastern Europe. Trans-border co-operation projects have had little success in overcoming the barriers to trans-border economic relationships based on personal mobility due to the enduring problems of weak market regulation and institutions. The paper, therefore, stresses the need to examine both the practices and the institutions of border region economies.