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In this paper, I present a case of dispute resolution from Pakistan where kinship leaders play a key role in resolving local disputes. Scholars often cite that such practices provide evidence of a failed state. However, I show how these traditional practices elucidate ongoing processes of boundary management. On the one hand, these practices reveal the efforts by non-state leaders to carve out their autonomy by taking on a role traditionally played by the state. In fact, their ability to management local/state boundaries is linked to how they manage boundaries within their communities. The state, in turn, recognizes or legitimates these boundaries when it is politically convenient or allows them to save face. I document such negotiations in my research and show how they are critical to understanding how villagers see the state and vice versa. The Pakistani case is important as the ubiquity of its alternate dispute resolution system problematizes the taken-for-granted status of the state and makes visible the mechanisms by which the boundaries between the state and society are continually negotiated and the implications for the citizen/state relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effect of a municipality being in the "Brazilian border" on its criminality rates, focusing mainly on twin cities and the different arcs. It also identifies determinants of criminality in those municipalities. Firstly, the Propensity Score Matching Method was used to identify the existence of overrepresentation of municipalities in border areas in criminality due to their location and, next, the Spatial Tobit model was applied aiming to identify the determinants of local criminality. Our results showed that, on average, there is no effect of "being in the border" when all the municipalities in border areas and their different arcs are considered. However, when twin cities were analyzed, such effect exists and intensifies the local criminality. Regarding determinants, a difference was found between the municipalities in the Brazilian border and the country as a whole, in which economic advantages were seen to be relevant in the latter context, while the presence of the State reducing social disadvantages is vital to decrease public safety issues in border areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectral clustering has become very popular in recent years, due to the simplicity of its implementation and good performance in clustering non-convex data. Constructing a similarity graph based on an appropriate distance measure for modeling the local neighborhood relations among data samples is crucial for achieving an acceptable performance in spectral clustering. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy spectral clustering algorithm for poorly separated data with arbitrary shapes. Distinguishing poorly separated clusters is a challenging issue since a border point of a cluster may be more similar to the border points of the adjacent cluster than to the points in its own cluster. We propose a local mean-based distance measure which helps in separating points in cluster borders. The distance between a pair of points, in the proposed distance measure, is defined as the distance between the mean of their k nearest neighbors. We also propose a new transitive-based method for computing the membership degrees of points to clusters. Our evaluation results on both artificial and real data show that both the proposed local mean-based distance measure and the proposed membership computation method have significant impacts in obtaining performance improvement over the existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses developments following the final arbitration ruling from The Hague, issued in July 2016, on the South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines. It considers the impact on the region of U.S. responses to the ruling and analyzes Washington's interests in the South China Sea: to preserve a rules-based order, support friends and allies, and preserve freedoms of navigation. However, pursuit of these interests can have an adverse impact on relations between the U.S and China, and affect the ability of these major powers to deal with the bigger issues of North Korea and Taiwan. Calls for the Trump Administration to take a stronger stand in the South China Sea in pursuit of these interests have not always been well received in the region. As a consequence, Southeast Asian countries are increasingly hedging against further deterioration in China-U.S. relations. The paper concludes that rather than acting more strongly against China in the South China Sea, there would be benefit in the U.S. taking a more constructive role by supporting current efforts towards better cooperation between the littoral countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]