The Dynamics Of Interstate Boundaries

Grappling with an issue at the core of the modern state and international security, George Gavrilis explores border control from the 19th century Ottoman Empire to 21st century Central Asia, China, and Afghanistan, exploring why some borders deter insurgents, smugglers, bandits, and militants while most suffer from infiltration and crisis.

The past two decades have seen an intense, interdisciplinary interest in the border areas between states--inhabited territories located on the margins of a power center or between power centers. This timely and highly original collection of essays edited by noted scholar I. William Zartman is an attempt "to begin to understand both these areas and the interactions that occur within and across them"--that is, to understand how borders affect the groups living along them and the nature of the land and people abutting on and divided by boundaries. These essays highlight three defining features of border areas: borderlanders constitute an experiential and culturally identifiable unit; borderlands are characterized by constant movement (in time, space, and activity); and in their mobility, borderlands always prepare for the next move at the same time that they respond to the last one. The ten case studies presented range over four millennia and provide windows for observing the dynamics of life in borderlands. They also have policy relevance, especially in creating an awareness of borderlands as dynamic social spheres and of the need to anticipate the changes that given policies will engender--changes that will in turn require their own solutions. Contrary to what one would expect in this age of globalization, says Zartman, borderlands maintain their own dynamics and identities and indeed spread beyond the fringes of the border and reach deep into the hinterland itself.

Innovatively looking at the complex interactions between indigenous peoples and modern imperialism in Arabia and Balkans, Foundations of Modernity challenges previous analytical models that attempt to capture the complexity of human interactions during the1800-1912 period in ways that instigates the paradigmatic shift of the "Euro-centric" perspective of modern world history.

Line in the Sand details the dramatic transformation of the western U.S.-Mexico border from its creation at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 to the emergence of the modern boundary line in the first decades of the twentieth century. In this sweeping narrative, Rachel St. John explores how this boundary changed from a mere line on a map to a clearly marked and heavily regulated divide between the United States and Mexico. Focusing on the desert border to the west of the Rio Grande, this book explains the origins of the modern border and places the line at the center of a transnational history of expanding capitalism and state power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moving across local, regional, and national scales, St. John shows how government officials, Native American raiders, ranchers, railroad builders, miners, investors, immigrants, and smugglers contributed to the rise of state power on the border and developed strategies to navigate the increasingly regulated landscape. Over the border's history, the U.S. and Mexican states gradually developed an expanding array of official laws, ad hoc arrangements, government agents, and physical barriers that did not close the line, but made it a flexible barrier that restricted the movement of some people, goods, and animals without impeding others. By the 1930s, their efforts had created the foundations of the modern border control apparatus. Drawing on extensive research in U.S. and Mexican archives, Line in the Sand weaves together a transnational history of how an undistinguished strip of land became the significant and symbolic space of state power and national definition that we know today.

This collection explores foreign policy crises and the way the states/leaders deal with them. Being at the juncture of a highly sensitive political zone, consisting of the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, the Republic of Turkey has been the subject of various foreign policy crises since its foundation. These political, military, economic or humanitarian crises were triggered either by the states themselves or by the NGOs and armed non-state actors. By examining literature in the field of foreign policy crises literature, this volume scrutinizes some of the most prominent Turkish foreign policy crises. Among these, there are protracted crises such as that of Cyprus and the Aegean Sea; a humanitarian one such as the 1989 migration of the Bulgarian Turks; an NGO-triggered crisis, such as the Mavi Marmara Confrontation; and an ongoing case such as the Syrian civil war. Looking at these crises from various aspects, the text sheds light on whether, or how, the reactions of the Turkish ruling elite change while trying to manage these crises. The book is a timely contribution to literature in the field of Politics and International Relations and will be useful to academics, diplomats and historians interested in foreign policy crises in general and Turkish foreign policy crises in particular.

Why do countries go to war over disputed lands? Why do they fight even when the territories in question are economically and strategically worthless? Drawing on critical approaches to international relations, political geography, international law, and social history, and based on a close examination of the Indian experience during the twentieth century, Itty Abraham addresses these important questions and offers a new conceptualization of foreign policy as a state territorializing practice. Identifying the contested process of decolonization as the root of contemporary Asian inter-state territorial conflicts, he explores the political implications of establishing a fixed territorial homeland as a necessary starting point for both international recognition and national identity—concluding that disputed lands are important because of their intimate identification with the legitimacy of the postcolonial nation-state, rather than because of their potential for economic gains or their place in historic grievances. By treating Indian diaspora policy and geopolitical practice as exemplars of foreign policy behavior, Abraham demonstrates how their intersection offers an entirely new way of understanding India's vexed relations with Pakistan and China. This approach offers a new and productive way of thinking about foreign policy and inter-state conflicts over territory in Asia—one that is non-U.S. and non-European focused—that has a number of implications for regional security and for foreign policy practices in the contemporary postcolonial world.

Though informed by case studies conducted in Ukraine, this book transcends its country-specific scope. It explains why informality in governance is not necessarily transitory or temporary but a constant in most political systems. The book discusses self-protective mechanisms, responses to incomplete or unfocused policy making, and strategies employed by individuals, classes, and communities to respond to unusual demands. The book argues that when state or company expectations exceed normative behavior, informal behavior continues to thrive. New tactics help cope with the reality of governance. Informality also challenges the values imposed by power through attitudes and behaviors that take place "beyond" or "in spite of" the state.