This article analyzes the efficacy of border enforcement against smuggling. We argue that walls, fences, patrols, and other efforts to secure porous borders can reduce smuggling, but only in the absence of collusion between smugglers and state agents at official border crossings. When such corruption occurs, border enforcement merely diverts smuggling flows without reducing their overall volume. We also identify the conditions under which corruption occurs and characterize border enforcement as a sorting mechanism that allows high-skilled smugglers to forge alternative border-crossing routes while deterring low-skilled smugglers or driving them to bribe local border agents. Combining a formal model and an archival case study of opium smuggling in Southeast Asia, we demonstrate that border enforcement has conditional effects on the routes and volumes of smuggling, depending on the nature of interactions between smugglers and border agents. By drawing attention to the technological and organizational aspects of smuggling, this article brings scholarship on criminal governance into the study of international relations, and contributes to debates on the effects of border enforcement and border politics more generally.

本文分析了边境执法打击走私的功效。我们认为，围墙、栅栏、巡逻和其他确保漏洞百出的边界安全的努力可以减少走私，但前提是走私者与官方边境口岸的国家代理人之间没有勾结。当发生此类腐败时，边境执法部门只会转移走私流量，而不会减少走私总量。我们还确定了腐败发生的条件，并将边境执法描述为一种分类机制，允许高技能的走私者开辟替代的过境路线，同时阻止低技能的走私者或驱使他们贿赂当地的边境代理人。结合东南亚鸦片走私的正式模型和档案案例研究，我们证明边境执法对走私的路线和数量有条件影响，这取决于走私者和边境代理人之间互动的性质。通过关注走私的技术和组织方面，本文将刑事治理学术带入国际关系研究，并有助于更广泛地讨论边境执法和边境政治的影响。