How do wars affect political boundaries

Figure 6. Ethnic groups, political borders, and topographical boundaries, in the former Yugoslavia. Discussion Summary of model comparisons with the data We briefly summarize seven categories of distinct sucessful comparisons between model predictions and the observed data that are contained in the results. Conclusions This work is part of a broader effort to use new methods for quantitative analysis of patterns of violence and their prevention [23] — [31].

Methods Identifying the propensity to violence using a wavelet filter The potential for conflict is quantified in our model using a wavelet filter [1] , [17] , [18] , [35].

Correlations of predicted and actual violence using proximity maps The points of predicted violence and reported violence do not precisely overlap within the assumptions of the model. Topographical and administrative boundaries We model both topographical and administrative boundaries within a country as preventing intergroup violence across them, similar to national boundaries in the earlier method [1].

Unpopulated sites Some small areas are unpopulated. Figure 7. Sensitivity of the analysis for Switzerland to different treatment of unpopulated areas. Census data for Switzerland The commune composition used in our calculations was based on the census of and published by the Swiss Statistical Office. Elevation edges in Switzerland and Yugoslavia at different thresholds We investigate the robustness of our analysis to variation of the gradient threshold that determines the presence of a topographical boundary and compare the results for linguistic groups in Switzerland.

Figure 8. Sensitivity of the analysis to the topographical barrier threshold. Religion census in Switzerland In the main paper we reported the propensity for violence between religious groups for the census for the characteristic length of 24 km.

Figure 9. Religious groups in Switzerland according to interpolated census. Figure Effect of political boundaries on the propensity to religious conflict in Switzerland census. Switzerland analysis at multiple length scales In this section we show the results of calculations of the propensity for violence for languages and religions in Switzerland for a range of characteristic lengths, demonstrating the robustness of these results.

Calculated propensity to violence between linguistic groups in Switzerland. Calculated propensity to violence between religious groups in Switzerland census. Specific events, listed by location: Glovelier — March 24, , arson against a military arsenal. Yugoslavia technical details Here we show the correlation of predicted and reported violence for the former Yugoslavia without administrative or topographical boundaries Fig.

Correlation of proximity maps of predicted and reported violence in Yugoslavia without topographical or political boundaries. Yugoslavia correlation analysis with administrative boundaries.

Yugoslavia correlation analysis with topographical boundaries. Yugoslavia correlation analysis including Slovenia and Macedonia without boundaries. Yugoslavia correlation analysis including Slovenia and Macedonia with political boundaries. References 1.

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International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering 4 : — Lustick IS, Miodownik D Abstractions, ensembles, and virtualizations: simplicity and complexity in agent-based modeling. Comp Polit 41 : — Most boundaries are artificial the exception being water boundaries around islands , because I and you do not separate easily and naturally, and even if we do, there is likely to be plenty of traffic, transport, and communication across the line. Geographic features help, as walls and moats, but are often ambiguous.

Mountain crests tend to separate populations if they are high enough but they are complex. Rivers divide shores but unite valleys. In many senses, boundary conflicts have all the characteristics of any other conflict.

The spatialisation or territorialisation of the conflict gives it a concrete nature that is both a complication and facilitation of conflict management. Studies show that territorial conflicts are easier to solve than conflicts over intangibles, and although the sacralisation of territory makes it less easy either to divide or to trade it, those possibilities do nonetheless exist.

Agreement over a boundary and its conditions provides a specific conclusion to a conflict that is hard to achieve with intangible stakes. Disputes about boundaries. Boundary uncertainty can occur because the line has never been drawn or never been accepted by both parties. Territorial limits to a state are a new development in many parts of the world, where the polity was traditionally a population unit rather than a territorial unit. Entrance into the modern international state system, often brought by colonisation, has required establishing territorial limits, often in inhospitable areas.

All these uncertainties have given rise to wars and only the Andean boundary has been fully resolved. But there are other reasons for uncertainties, frequently less conflictual.

A notable instance arises from the shifting bed of boundary rivers, but shifting roads can also ignore and complicate boundary certainty. A boundary commission in the s made small but useful rectification in the Zairean-Zambia boundary for these reasons, and the US-Mexican Chamizal dispute received a technical solution after some years of contestation.

Finally, the very act of defining the boundary can create conflict. Efforts to overcome uncertainty can rouse sleeping dogs and can bring to light details worth disputing, according both to physical and human geography, and to relations for other reasons between the bounded countries.

An effort to clarify the Eritrean-Ethiopian boundary around the apparently insignificant little town of Badme made each country realise how much it really meant to them, and how tense the rest of the relations between the two of them were anyhow.

Disputes over the acceptance of an otherwise established boundary have more to do with the territory behind the line than with the line itself, and hence are properly territorial disputes. Again, such claims can occur for physical or social reasons. Physical sources of claims concern resources or positions that the territory holds. An oil-rich neighbouring territory, such as Kuwait next door to Iraq, or a coal-rich territory, such as the German Saar next to France, arouses covetous looks from the other side of the border that then calls the border into question.

The simple location of the territory in question in the name of geographic logic issues a powerful directive. By extension, this same sort of boundary dispute can be applied to secessionist demands, in the sense that the ethnic group is protesting the absence of a boundary between themselves and the rest of the country.

Disputes across boundaries. A second circle carries the dispute to the two capitals, the centres of the peripheries. For example one of many , the Iraqi-Iranian border war in concerned Iranian support for Iraqi Kurds, then spilled over into war at other points along the border including the southern salient near the Shatt al-Arab.

Settled in , the war broke out again between the traditionally hostile neighbours in after the Iranian revolution and spread to threats of direct air attacks on the capitals, while in both cases bringing in regional and global allies of both sides. Disputes across borders arise from the fact that an artificial line interrupts normal human interaction. In some cases life goes on across the soft borders, families continuing their family life despite the line. On the Togo-Benin border, between two sometimes hostile states with burdensome customs and immigration procedures on the main road between them, family weddings and funerals and night-time bride-snatching go on free of official interference.

And on the French-Swiss border, towns and even backyards are divided by an unpatrolled invisible line. The very sharpness of the frontier gives rise to attempts to get around it, creating new professions: smugglers, middlemen, border officials, etc.

These two boundary models can be called black-and-white and grey: the Iron Curtain and the current Cypriot Green Line are examples of the first; the Rhine valley and the Rio Grande Valley, until recently, examples of the second. More profoundly, these different types refer to the boundaries in depth — borderlands, the area on either side of the border.

It is important to realise that these areas are inhabited by people who identify as borderlanders, whatever their attitudes toward their national identity. The black-and-white and grey models are pictures of some borderlands, but other pictures are available, each with its own implications: buffered, where a third population is inserted to separate the other two; spotty, where islands of one population are scattered within the other;layered, where social strata separate different populations related to either side of the boundary; or, one should add, something else or a mixture of these.

The Serbs inserted by the Austrians in the Krajina to separate Croats from Muslims, Jewish settlements in Palestine, and Palestinians in Israel are examples of the three models.

Mostly, these types of borderland populations are the result of conflicts across boundaries, but they then form the context for future conflicts. Those left behind could not easily understand the new lives of the migrants, expecting them to deliver the fruits of western life through gifts and money, while in reality they were struggling to consolidate their own positions.

As Iwona, who came to Britain in at the age of 19, recounted:. If earlier migrations had to be undertaken within, and despite, the political boundaries of their times, migration away from Poland took on new dimensions again after the collapse of the communist regime in Emigration continued as it had always done, but this time it was easier to leave. As with those who left during communism, legal status in Britain rested on the extension of short-term visas, official work offers or marriage.

The economic pain of transition nevertheless pushed hundreds of thousands of Poles to emigrate, although Britain was not a major destination in the way that Germany, Italy, Greece and the US were. Until the accession of Poland into the European Union in , the issue of east European workers in Western Europe especially could be overlooked. The lead-up to , however, brought the issue of east-west migration in Europe out into the open. Barely concealed unreconstructed prejudices about Eastern Europe dominated press discussion, with the 'Polish plumber' quickly becoming the symbol of all that was unpalatable about the new Eastern Europe.

For Western Europe especially, EU enlargement challenged ideas about what Europe really was, and how east and west could work together on an official footing.

For people in Poland, signalled a change again in emigration trends to the west; although emigration had been steadily building throughout the s, now it was legal to go and work in Britain, Ireland and Sweden, the first countries to offer open access and allow the free movement of people within the Union. According to Home Office sources, by June , Poles had registered to work in Britain, the majority of these being young, and a significant proportion being highly skilled.

So how has the experience of migration changed for these emigrants, taking advantage of the apparent borderless Europe, enjoying the supposed New World Order of the post-Cold War world? Certainly technological advances and more accessible travel options have created a more transnational workforce among Polish emigrants. Cheap flights, internet connections and telephone company deals have all led to the notion that these new migrants are actually commuters rather than settlers, hopping over, rather than crossing, international borders with ease, much more likely to return to their homeland than earlier emigrants.

And presumably, as the physical boundaries melt away, so too should the cultural divides that have characterised Europe for so long. As Joanna, who arrived in Britain in aged 28 suggested, coming to Britain is not so different to moving to another city within Poland:.

But have these borders between east and west in Europe really dissolved? Are these new migrants really commuters, or are there still real borders fettering their journeys? Firstly, no amount of internet access can replace the experience of being close to friends and family. The Polish migrants I have interviewed are not overjoyed to have to be away from home, pushed away by high unemployment and the struggle of daily life.

They feel the distance very keenly, admit to feeling lonely without the people they left behind. They are negotiating emotional borders when they leave and return, as well as economic ones. What about politics? Patrycja's account of coming to Britain to study illustrates how significant EU membership could be in bringing down the remnants of Cold War barriers — a way of bestowing equality on formerly second class Europeans.

Responses to this new chapter in Polish migration to Britain, however, have demonstrated that political barriers are still apparent, despite Polish accession. Polish workers are again being signalled as a problem in certain parts of the British press — they might be white Christians, but they are still 'other', still characterised in the popular imagination as coming from a place that is backward and corrupt, here to drive down wages and living standards.

Polish migration to Britain since the Second World War therefore illustrates the changing nature of Europe's internal boundaries, with individual experiences reflecting wider developments in the continent's recent political history. The Second World War violated the borders of so many European countries and the post-war resettlements redrew many of them all over again. Migration at this time tended to mirror these changes, with individuals finding themselves at the mercy of wider political battles and decisions.

For the post-war settlers in Britain, the turbulent recent history of Poland's borders could only represent the upheaval and loss in their own lives.

Crossing the border back to Poland again would always trigger awareness of this memory, even for subsequent generations. During the Cold War, borders in Europe faced entrenchment rather than violation. Emigrating from Poland was no longer about survival in the way it had been before; it was far more focused on actually managing to move at all. For those who did leave, the physical borders may have been crossed, but new cultural divides had to be navigated.

Subsequent transnational contact with friends and family became another site for the negotiation of the imagined barriers between east and west, as well as the real political ones. Finally, as borders are reconfigured again in Europe, migration from Poland to Britain has entered a new chapter. Whether the east-west divide has really been healed is open to debate, however.

It is economic disparity which is driving mass migration from east to west, a symptom of yet another divide on the continent. As political borders are redrawn, it will take longer for economic and social ones to catch up. Created Autumn by the Institute of Historical Research. Copyright notice. No javascript: other issues.