Researching Elements of Cross-Border Social Cohesion: the Case of Slovene Border Areas

The article discusses the possibility of “measuring” the intensity of cross-border cohesion and co-dependence on the case of Slovene border areas. It presents first an overview of how geography has studied and interpreted borders, and what an impact had borders on both space and society. The author then analyses both qualitative and quantitative structure of border areas prior to Slovenia’s admission to the Schengen Space and explores recent changes after 2007, when border controls on the major part of his borders where eliminated. These developments produced several spatial and social (re)integration trends that have been detected in the author’s analyses through some comparable research methods and indicators, permitting also to rank Slovenian border sections and individual sub-areas by the intensity and quality of their cross-border cohesion.