Regulating Territorial Access in a Globalized World. Visa-Waiver Policies in the USA and Austria

The immense increase in tourist travel over the past thirty years has made states re-arrange their border and control policies. While there is evidence for a more restrictive approach to control, states have also increasingly used visa-waiver policies and lifted the visa requirement for those considered "trustworthy." In this article, we analyze visa regulations, in particular visa waiver programs, for short-term mobility, focusing on the USA and Austria. We demonstrate that citizens from wealthy democracies have always been more likely to benefit from visa-free travel than others. However, this effect has been reinforced under processes of globalization, leading to increased selectivity, and thus to a polarization of mobility opportunities. Additionally, we find an increasing convergence of both visa regimes since the 1990s.