Against hard border thinking and traditional notions of sovereignty, this work is an argument for soft borders and transnational citizenship exercised through multiple and overlapping polities: negotiable and fluid spaces of political association. The work does not romanticize movement, but recognizes the cruel grasp of border politics on people's lives. It rejects a notion of sovereignty that fixes political identities into hierarchical geographies of place, facilitating the movement and well-being of some at the expense of others. The argument for soft borders is a plea to reverse the trend of building walls for peace and security and an appeal to open rather close the opportunities and avenues for collective action.

While sovereignty is increasingly contested within academic circles, most recent military conflicts have been over issues of sovereignty in some form. Focusing on Yugoslavia in the 1990s, this book explores the issues surrounding 'sovereignty' and calls for a radical rethinking of the notion and the institutions and practices that it grounds.