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After regaining independence in 1918, Poland faced many fundamental and strategic challenges. One of them was the issue of border crossings on the German-Polish border in Silesia. It was a region dominated by modern heavy industry, to which both the modern states laid claim. The course of the border was to be decided by a plebiscite, but the parties to the conflict resorted to violence and military means. In a complicated international situation and without the possibility of open military intervention, Poland effectively used the strategic tool of special operations – known more widely today as unconventional warfare. Thanks to their skillful application, the German military advantage was effectively eliminated and strategic goals were achieved. Poles effectively cut lines of communication, making it impossible to support pro-German organizations in Silesia, and successfully organized insurgent forces that achieved the goals important for Poland's development policy. This paper tells the story of a special mission unit called the Destruction Group 'Wawelberg' and its use as a tool for implementing the state policy of unconventional warfare during the Third Silesian Uprising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Narendra Modi's administration, India has been implementing a pragmatic foreign policy following realistic principles toward China. By using methods of policy analysis, in combination with content analysis and discourse research, the paper demonstrates that India's policy toward China under the Prime Minister (PM) Modi's leadership is a set of strategic responses of a rising power to an assertive neighbor who is rising at global level. This set of responses includes a policy of cooperation when it sees China as a partner, a policy of containment when it sees China as a rival, a policy of conflict management when it sees China as a neighbor who has direct territorial disputes; and a policy of balance of power when it sees China as an opponent. The authors of the paper are of the view that one of the key elements in India's policies toward China is that it is a combination of both cooperation and competition aspects. In addition, it is to be seen that India has simultaneously used various channels to implement these policies toward China to secure its national goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong is the property of Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines spatial practices in the everyday life of the villagers in a South Korean border village. Focusing on the Yugokri Unification Village in Cheorwon, the paper analyses the residents' spatial actions as a lens to study how the villagers cope with the volatile border. It reveals highly intricate and discrete ways the residents use the space of the frontier village as a platform, despite high levels of control imposed by the state, for their struggles against the authoritarian vision by developing, augmenting and enhancing their spaces around them in their everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-9/11 dynamic global political developments and the growing Indo-US strategic partnership has compelled Pakistan to seek strategic partnership with China and geared at maintaining the balance of power in South Asia. India is maximising its resources under the umbrella of Indo-US strategic partnership and working with the US on various sectors such as security, defence and energy to pursue its aspirations to be a regionally dominant power and to possess a blue water navy. Pakistan unaided and alone cannot counterbalance India's regional ambitions. Thus, Pakistan with China established a strategic partnership to counter India's hegemonic ambitions in the South Asian region. This paper will raise some questions about the latest contours of this partnership. Prime amongst them is: what kind of role is this partnership playing in South Asia? The paper argues that a China-Pakistan strategic partnership built around the development of Gwadar Port and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor is playing the role of a balancer against India's regional ambitions in South Asia. India has some serious security concerns about these mega development projects apprehending their geostrategic importance not only for both countries but also for the entire region. A neo-realist theoretical approach is used to describe both countries 'strategic partnership' in this paper. The paper further argues that India's claim that the corridor route passes through the disputed territory of Northern Pakistan will not stop China and Pakistan from continuing the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archival materials are repeatedly consulted to settle disputes before the courts of law. The main purpose of the paper is to examine the use of archival materials in the ultimate settlement of the border dispute between Botswana and Namibia over the disputed ownership of the Sedudu/Kasikili Island. This paper took a qualitative approach where documentary review of archival materials and other documentary sources were used to answer the research questions. The findings indicate that archival materials in their various forms such as drawings, maps, plans, reports, scientific documents, and correspondence by colonial authorities played a significant role as evidence that informed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to legally settle the boundary dispute between Botswana and Namibia. This paper also established the need for archivists to preserve the reliability and authenticity of records over time for them to be trusted as evidence. The fact that the case was solved with access to archival materials among other evidence presented, is an indication of the importance of archives in the society. Although this paper contributes to literature on the role of archives in the resolution of boundary conflicts, it is limited in that the findings are restricted to a review of archival materials in the holdings of the Botswana National Archives and Records Service (BNARS) exclusive of archival materials from the National Archives of Namibia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Security Strategies Journal / Güvenlik Stratejileri Dergisi is the property of Strategic Research Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A central task of climate justice is to agree upon a just distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. According to the equal per capita shares view, the right to emit should be divided equally between every inhabitant of Earth, since to emit is to use up the resource of atmospheric absorptive capacity, and this is a resource to which no one person has any stronger claim than any other. The fact that a significant proportion of the Earth's ability to absorb and sequester greenhouse gases actually comes not from the atmosphere, but from terrestrial climate sinks that are located within national borders, and that are therefore plausibly subject to legitimate territorial claims, poses a serious challenge to the intuitive egalitarian simplicity of the equal per capita shares view. A defence of this view, then, is tantamount to a defence of the redistribution of terrestrial sink capacity, and therefore must involve either (1) an argument against the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or (2) an argument for why legitimate territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored in favour of an equal per capita distribution of emissions shares. One strategy for doing so involves applying Charles Beitz's resource redistribution principle to terrestrial sink capacity. Some authors have argued that this strategy will fail due to important differences between the nature of 'conventional' natural resources, and the nature of a resource link climate sink capacity. In this paper, I consider five arguments to this effect that seek to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. Respectively, they appeal to attachment, identity, self-determination, improvement and fairness in order to do so. I argue that each one either fails to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or, where they do plausibly establish legitimacy, they do so in a way that renders them vulnerable to type-(2) objections that suggest territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored. I conclude that, if one is willing to adopt the resource redistribution principle, a just distribution of emissions shares need not respect territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes instances of the Indian leadership's choice of an escalatory approach in its border dispute with China, first in the adoption of the Forward Policy in the lead up to the 1962 war, and more briefly the more recent decision in 2017 to take escalatory action in response to Chinese activity in the Doklam area in the trijunction of the India-China-Bhutan border region. In doing so, the paper demonstrates how a focus on reputation as an explanatory factor may allow us to make better sense of how Indian leaders have in the past and continue to in the present make decisions on key issues of national security concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After her independence in 1961, the new government of Tanganyika (now called Mainland Tanzania) embarked on the establishment of new administrative units, namely regions, districts, wards, villages, and hamlets as well as establishing political and administrative boundaries. The government expected that local communities would peacefully utilize the existing resources within the respective administrative units. Contrary to that, the newly established administrative units and their respective boundaries caused conflicts in different parts of Mainland Tanzania. The reviewed literature suggests that conflicts emerged over pieces of land that separated the borders and ethnically created boundaries. Using archival sources, interviews, newspapers and documentary reviews, this paper argues that boundary conflicts between peasants and pastoralists in Kiteto District were caused by political and administrative decisions of the post-colonial government which ignored the traditional land administrative units and boundaries. The new boundaries were set up for political interests; they ignored traditional boundary settings and violated land laws and procedures during the installation of the boundary marks. The paper is thought to be significant as it contributes to the existing scholarship on border disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to re-examine the circumstances of the Falkland Islands crisis, caused by the Argentine annexation of the archipelago in 1982. It challenges the popular belief that the Falklands invasion was only aimed at distracting the society from the poor conditions of living caused by the deteriorating economy and lack of democracy. The paper takes into consideration a third factor: nationalism of the Argentine armed forces. The article takes both the domestic and international contexts of the Falklands crisis into consideration and presents how nationalist attitudes of the Argentine military influenced the Falklands conflict in 1982. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on a 20th century Nepali intellectual, Ram Mani Acharya Dixit (1883-1972), and his trans-border activities for the promotion of the vernacular by investigating his integration of the progress of a language with his nation, his apotheosis of the vernacular and his devotion in strengthening prose writing for the sake of the development of the divine mother tongue. Foregrounding his linguistic activities such as writing, publishing and printing in Nepal and India, with Benares in particular, it will try to answer questions such as: What was the motivating factor that inspired him to write and publish in the Nepali language? Was he in any way influenced by the Hindi language movement that was at its peak in North India of the time? How influential was Dixit's role in standardizing Nepali? Besides this Nepali language standardization concern, the paper will also examine Dixit's idea of serving mother, motherland, mother tongue and [Hindu] religion through service to a language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Basra Studies Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the means by which Ukraine has sought to address a critical and highly complex unanticipated policy problem. This is the emergence of almost 2 million internally dislocated people (IDPs) within the country in 2014 as a consequence of major, highly violent and continuing border conflict in the country's South and East. In large part, as a consequence of its financial and administrative circumstances, Ukraine has addressed this situation in what has been a relatively unique manner for the country, relying upon organizations other than a central government ministry to shape and implement critically important policy and service delivery. This paper documents and maps both the extensive array of organizations whose involvement has gradually led to the emergence of what has become essentially a fledgling system of multi-level governance (MLG) which has been critical to the nation's success in addressing the very difficult and complex policy problems created by massive internal dislocation. In so doing, the paper explores MLG, both theoretically and as it has developed in actuality, in terms of Ukraine's response to the critical problems posed by the need to address its large and serious IDP crisis. The paper also examines the issue of community adaptation by IDPs and develops two models of community response. In order to do this, the paper relies upon historical review, comparative analysis, personal interviews and the use of expert focus groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While using polynomial functions to define window functions is an initial approach in studying the memristor element, it is susceptible to generating imaginary results. However, using window functions, including the trigonometric function, is a current field of research on the memristor element. This paper uses the trigonometric Blackman window function to present a new memristor element model and investigates its nonlinear ion drift model properties. The motivation of this study is the usage of the trigonometric Blackman window function, which presents a more detailed definition and leads to more accurate results in windowing operations. The Blackman window function can address the issues of border locking and terminal state. Numerical simulations have verified this proposed structure. Additionally, the analog realizations of the memristor element constructed with the Blackman window function have been achieved on a Field Programmable Analog Array, which offers fast prototyping, serving as an alternative approach for emulating memristors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan has long been caught in a complex security predicament rooted in Afghanistan's refusal to recognize the Durand Line as the official international boundary between the two countries, and its territorial claims extending into Pakistani territory across the Durand Line. This security dilemma has euolued, taking on uarious facets due to several factors, including developments in their bilateral relations and regional dynamics. Political and securityrelated developments are intrinsically intertwined with the two nations' interference in each other's internal matters. Afghanistan's pursuit of the 'Pashtunistan' cause, its establishment of ties with India, and support for the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) haue exacerbated this security conundrum. Pakistan, in response, undertook measures to counter Muhammad Daoud Khan 's attempts to meddle in its internal affairs, participated in the Afghan jihad against the Souiet Union and the subsequent civil war, and later aligned itself with the United States during the American invasion of Afghanistan, all of which haue engendered discontent among the Afghan populace. This paper aims to elucidate the intricate interplay of these developments and factors in perpetuating the enduring security dilemma in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge marks not only a record-setting achievement in engineering, but also a materialisation of ongoing efforts by the People's Republic of China to engage in cooperative projects aimed at expanding and deepening integrative connections with the semi-autonomous Special Administrative Regions of Macau and Hong Kong. This paper explores the colonial and post-colonial social construction of Hong Kong as a political-economic island, and the implications this carries into the tensions and open conflicts that have unfolded under the One Country, Two Systems agreement. Using the bridge as a case, it critically examines the geopolitical and biopolitical dimensions of infrastructure as a practice of subnational (de)bordering. The case renders visible a contemporary moment where infrastructure occupies a central position at the conjuncture of technology, advanced governmentality and shifting geographies of sovereignty in the People's Republic of China, within subnational city-regional development plans, as well as internationally in projects, such as the geographically expansive Belt and Road Initiative. A close examination of the Bridge project highlights the constructed and contested nature of borders, as well as the complex identities and ideologies that define them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the conventional understanding of North Korean borders as classic barriers that block infiltration of outside influences, this paper argues that the Sino-North Korean border region has undergone considerable transformations, especially at the local level. By analysing local-level trans-border activities, it shows that North Korea seeks to develop the Sino-North Korean border region as a space of opportunity. Even the heightened political conflicts between China and North Korea and the tightened international sanctions against North Korea failed to dampen local actors' economic imperatives, particularly after the 2012 and 2013 decentralisations in North Korea. Local actors were active in driving trans-border economic practices and, in turn, transformed the Sino-North Korean border region into potential cross-border cooperation zones. Although there has been conflict and competition in border region development between North Korea and China, we argue that local governments and entrepreneurs' efforts to maximise economic independence in the border regions are persisting, and their geo-economic imperatives are important factors in reshaping the Sino-North Korean border region by initiating and advancing trans-border interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jammu and Kashmir has been experiencing border conflict since the partition of India (1947) into two sovereign states (India and Pakistan). Four wars have been fought between them and still the issue has not been resolved. Uncertain firing, the continuous threat to life, unsettled life, and restricted living conditions affects the quality of life of the common people living in villages near the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC). The number of ceasefire violations in 2020 was the highest number of ceasefire violations in the past 16 years. People on both sides are the worst sufferers of the military aggression between the nations. Children living in such a volatile context lack the required developmental opportunities and their future is highly jeopardized. A serious commitment to the peacebuilding and reconciliation process is the way forward. Reconciliation processes like the Tashkent Declaration (1966), the Shimla Agreement (1972), and the Peace Bus service (1999) have been initiated but could not sustain peace for a longer period. This paper highlights the reconciliation process between the two countries and the need for a sustainable reconciliation initiative to secure the future of coming generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although populism does not dictate a coherent ideological or programmatic agenda, some of its elements still leave distinct marks on the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This paper argues for the study of populism in its tangible policy impacts and scrutinizes the nexus of populism and foreign policy in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan's rule. Despite the abundant references to the 'people' in the populist rhetoric, it identifies personalization in foreign policy decision-making, nationalization in foreign policy implementation, and civilizationalization in the foreign policy discourse. Having established the patterns of populist foreign policy from a wider reading, this study then examines, generally, how populism has informed Turkish foreign policy and, specifically, Turkey's approach to the recent border disputes over the gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. [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]

On January 23, 2013 the Philippines alerted the international community that it had initiated a case against China in to help resolve the dispute regarding China's continuing move into the South China Sea. The body set to hear the case against China is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China's response was presented in a scathing 93-point rebuke of the Philippines. China claims that the Philippines has not followed proper channels in trying to resolve territorial disputes, and China remains willing to discuss this at a bilateral level. For their part, Philippine officials claim that China is bullying its way into hegemonic control of the South China Sea. This paper presents a contextual understanding of the current situation with an eye toward history as a way through this potential geopolitical crisis. Based on precedent in the area and in world history, I argue in this paper that the Philippine government's reliance on the UNCLOS to arbitrate with China in the South China Sea is a gamble that will result in greater harm than good for the region. The limited options in how to respond to China should recalibrate how the Philippines should diplomatically move forward with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South China Sea dispute is developing at an extraordinarily rapid pace with six states' overlapping territorial interest, abundant untapped natural resources and more than hundreds of geological features. The regional consensus opposes coercion and favors diplomacy, but China is out of step with both the regional consensus and international norms and has posed a serious threat to the Asia-Pacific security. With this backdrop, this paper, predominantly taking the geopolitical approach, takes a stand that the South China Sea is going to be the grand chessboard of the world. The study endeavors to project that the world will never get a better place to contain an undemocratic expansionist power like China than the South China Sea. The great powers, including the US, need to take a very strongly articulated South China Sea policy, as the world is getting tired of the ambiguous policy of China from the 'Peaceful Rise' to 'Covid-19'. At the same time, the paper sheds light on the importance of South China Sea in India's strategic gambit and how this complex, potential ground is important to India to turn the Chinese dominated Asia into a multipolar Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the management of maritime territorial and jurisdictional disputes. A big number of such disputes exist among Southeast Asian states; there are even more when we expand the area under discussion to the Western Pacific, including both SEA and the South China Sea. The disputes typically originate from questions of sovereignty, jurisdiction over maritime zones, and access rights to living and non-living resources. Some of the disputes are bilateral in nature while others involve three or more countries. The most complicated disputes thus far are those over the Spratlys in the South China Sea, which involve six claimants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For greater control over space and power continuous struggle occurring between different human groups and/or nations ultimately leads to conflict and war. The present paper is concerned with the conflict between India and Pakistan which is the longest conflict in the World Geopolitics with no end in the foreseeable future. The main objective of this paper is to study the geographical bases of India-Pakistan conflict. The paper is based on historical, political, economic, strategic and media sources. In methodological sense it is descriptive as well as analytical in nature. As the study is concerned with geographic influences upon the changing power relationship between India and Pakistan, thus, it is of great significance in the geopolitical studies. The study reveals some geographical bases of the conflict between India and Pakistan such as territorial (border disputes), strategic (importance of Jammu and Kashmir as buffer region), resource (water and maritime water disputes), religion or ethnic (displacement of large scale population from India to Pakistan or vice-versa) geography (geographical unity of a state or a nation in terms of physical and human phenomenon; e.g. Akhanda Bharat) and proximity (close proximity to Jammu and Kashmir to India and Pakistan). In conclusion, the study confirms that the conflictuality between India and Pakistan is geography stimulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamism of Sino-Indian relations is a key determinant of the connectivity, geopolitics and geo-economics of the region and a driver of politics and economy of South Asia. China and India are collaborating with each other in multiple sectors but at the same time they are unable to resolve their border disputes. Due to that, tensions on the border are a routine matter. In June 2017, a border conflict escalated to a ten weeks military standoff at the Doklam Plateau, i.e., an area claimed by China and owned by Bhutan. There was a continuous threat that military stalemate will turn into a full-fledged war anytime but nevertheless the conflict ended without any major confrontation. There were certain factors including geopolitical situation, trade relations, economic ties, power imbalance and international image, etc. that led to de-escalation of conflict. The paper recommends that both the nations have to work on some permanent solutions for resolution of these territorial disputes because they may sabotage the peace process anytime affecting not only the bilateral relations but peace and harmony of the entire South Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper highlights the role of Pakistani policy makers and intellectuals in compounding Pakistan's problems. It looks at the variations and divergences in approaches to the conflict in Pakistani society from two different perspectives. Interdisciplinary approach has been adopted which helps us show how Pakistani intellectuals and policy makers are repeating the narrative of terrorism as it is advocated by the 'Empire'. The causes of this intellectual submission to the narrative of Imperial hegemon are contrasted with insights from theorists and critics like Chomsky, Duffield, Wallerstein et al., to show why Pakistani policy makers and intellectuals have been unable to make any sense of the equation. The paper builds its argument by detailing the lapses in policies and informed scholarly discourses to the specter of terrorism from within Pakistan and how the same specter has been looked at from critical perspectives by renowned scholars. The causes of these two different responses give us the handle on understanding and contextualizing the obtaining environment in Pakistan. A subjective, interpretivist, and constructivist approach has been adopted to make the argument understandable from theoretical frameworks and perspectives that help us remove veil from the causes that perpetuate conflicts in Pakistani society. What the paper reveals is the total submission of Pakistani intellectuals and policy makers to the dictates of American Imperial agenda in the region. This, as the paper holds, compounds rather than resolving the conflicts. This peculiar mindset clouds the reality of the overall situation in South Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the notion of "geopolitical culture" as a conceptual tool for understanding debates over the formulation of foreign policy in contemporary Russia. To draw out the value of this concept, the paper explores the symbolism of territory as a means for restoring Russia's status, respect, and power. However, in contrast to previous studies, it traces the ways in which a concession of territory has been promoted as a device for achieving Russia's great power ambitions. More broadly, the paper seeks to stimulate a wider debate on reconceptualizing the relationship between territory and identity in Russia, at the same time as it places Russia's Far Eastern borderlands at the heart of debates on the spatial imaginaries of the Russian homeland. By drawing on and advancing recent theoretical innovations in critical geopolitics, and recognizing the significance of the discourse of nationalism within these framings, the paper explores the nuanced and multiple story lines that constitute Russia's geopolitical culture. Through this approach, intriguing and complex plot lines and unexpected twists are revealed, which have at times been obscured by nationalist-territorial-revanchist narratives on Putin's Russia. It is suggested that such approaches can also provide insights for interpreting cases and contexts beyond Russia and Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes a critical look at the sovereignty claims surrounding the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. The dispute has long plagued Sino-Japanese relations and is considered one of the key regional security hotspots, with the People's Republic of China mounting an active challenge to Japanese administrative control. This article reviews the case for sovereignty under both the discovery and the prescription principles. However, the article concludes that one cannot find a compelling case for sovereignty under either principle in favour of either claimants. The paper argues that this is due to the traditional insignificance of the islands prior to UNCLOS establishing exclusive economic zones. Rather, the article suggests that to facilitate a resolution to the disputes, the islands should not be classified as islands under UNCLOS as they do not meet the legal threshold for such a classification, either today or historically. If anything, the weakness of claims that contributes to the intractability of the dispute today shows that traditionally neither China nor Japan has considered these territories as islands in a manner that would be in the spirit of UNCLOS. While such a reclassification would not immediately resolve the dispute, it would be a significant step to remove incentives for the further pursuit of conflicting sovereignty over the islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure has played an agential role in the securitisation of everyday life in the Karakoram high mountains of north Pakistan. Geopolitics bear heavily on this region where Pakistan shares borders with China, with whom it has aligned its foreign and security policy, and with India, with whom Pakistan remains embroiled in a long‐standing territorial dispute. Consequently, in the Karakoram, geopolitical anxieties have reflected inwards onto local populations through both security infrastructure and securitised infrastructure. In this postcolony frontier space, statecraft also frequently bypasses normative legal and administrative structures; such exceptions to normative law and administration have antecedents in colonial statecraft on the territorial margins of empire. This paper also argues that long cycles of military rule have allowed the military to acquire and project technocratic expertise, become custodians of state‐led development, and recently, to assume guardianship of, and to enter into joint financing with China on, construction projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A characteristic feature of transnational administrative acts is that their effects extend beyond the borders of the issuing State, i.e., they have also effects in the territory of other States. It is one of the institutes that is also used within the European Union to harmonise the activities of the Member States at the application level, too. It represents the so-called horizontal form of harmonisation. The aim of this paper is to analyse possible ways of defence of the Member State concerned against the effects of a transnational administrative act issued by another Member State. In addition, the paper also includes a debate about the new concept of such defence in European Union legislation. In preparing this paper, the basic methods of scientific research were used, consisting in the analysis of the current legal regulation of transnational administrative acts in European Union law, the synthesis of common features and groups of possible means of defence, and subsequently the description of possible proposals de lege ferenda for better legislation. The author concludes that in the current legislation there are several different ways of defence of a Member State against the effects of transnational administrative acts and also formulates his proposals for the unification of possible procedural defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines China's investments in Russia as a case study of China's challenge to the liberal order. It surveys the political economy of China's state-owned enterprises—the primary vehicles for China's investments in Russia—in a global context. It argues that China's investments in Russia constitute an emerging structural economic challenge to the liberal international order. The trend of China's investments in Russia illustrates Beijing's strategy of fostering global economic integration that ultimately may not conform to the geopolitical underpinnings of a liberal international order. It looks at two cases of China's investments in Russia: the technology sector and the financial sector. It shows that the liberal order's tension with China's strategy vis-à-vis globalization is rooted in its impact on US structural power and suggests that the active presence of Chinese state-guided capital in Russia's high-tech development and its financial system illustrate the nature of this challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional accounts of the South China Sea territorial disputes identify China's assertive behaviour as the primary cause of the rising tension since the early 2010s. This paper goes beyond this traditional interpretation of the disputes by arguing that the territorial disputes are an expression of the broader contestation between two order-building projects by China and the United States (US). China's assertive behaviour originates in its desire to promote a 'historical' and 'post-colonial' maritime order that is premised on its Sino-centric historical narrative of the Sea and on its emphasis on the historical legitimacy of the regional order of 1943–1945. The US-led 'liberal' maritime order is underpinned by a post-war legal framework built on the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the notion and practice of freedom of navigation. Since October 2015 the US has enhanced its freedom of navigation operations to challenge China's 'excessive' maritime or territorial claims. We conclude that as a result of the uneasy coexistence of these two order-building projects, which fundamentally disagree over the foundations of maritime order in the South China Sea, the disputes have reached an open-ended impasse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The colonial project for the partition of Africa in the second half of the 19th century, which culminated in the 20th century, led to the disgruntlements among African countries in the post-colonial period. One discontentment manifests itself in the interstate border disputes. This paper is a critique to colonial scholarship which maintains that African borders were defined by colonial treaties with great precision. While I acknowledge the colonial border treaties as the foundations of the modern African states, this paper argues that most of the treaties were imprecise, incomplete, ill-defined, used vague documentation, routinely ignored ethnic composition of the territories and did not reflect realities on the ground, and, consequently staked interstate conflicts and wars in post-colonial period. To advance this argument, this paper is situated in the normative theory to explain the Malawi-Tanzania border dispute in the Lake Nyasa area, which reflects an ill-fated legacy of colonial boundary making process. Data for this paper are mainly drawn from the archival sources accessed from the British National Archives in the United Kingdom, Bundes Archives in Germany, SOAS; and another documentary information accessed from various libraries – public and private. Findings divulge that the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890 which situated the boundary between Malawi and Tanzania contained some anomalies entrenched in the contradictions within the treaty, limits and exercise of sovereignty of the two powers and geographical realities. The paper sums up that the two countries cannot use the treaty as one and the only justification for situating the boundary either on the eastern shore or in the middle of the lake. The treaty may, however, provide the basis for the two nation-states to renegotiate and compromise their shared boundary and rectify the errors noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine Spatial Planning is labelled as 'an idea whose time has come' based on its applicability to address spatial conflicts and deliver sustainable use. Legislation such as the EU MSP Directive 2014/89/EU and the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 requires that neighbouring marine spatial plans are coherent and coordinated to address cross-border issues. However, the implementation of MSP in cross-border areas is complex due to different administrative processes, fiscal and legislative procedures. This study argues that cross-border MSP is challenging in areas that are faced with historically contested borders which limit effective delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Two contested case study regions: Germany, Poland and the island of Ireland are compared. To help understand contemporary issues, a bespoke theoretical evaluative framework, the 'Wheel of Integration and Adaptation' is used to identify the challenges of cross-border MSP. An in-depth review of planning documents, policies, legislation was undertaken alongside interviews. This demonstrated that in contested areas, cross-border MSP must contend with the following challenges: 'inter alia' geographical peripheries syndrome, schema overload, limited transparency and blue justice, diplomatic consultation processes and differences in planning philosophies. This paper concludes by presenting five interventions as steps toward advancing cross-border MSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become the most important vehicle for Chinese cooperation with Central Asian member states and Russia. China seeks to play an active role and exert strong influence in the SCO for both economic reasons and strategic considerations. China aims to resolve territorial and border issues with Central Asian states, maintain stability in Xinjiang, develop the economy of western areas, and ensure energy security by playing a leading role in the SCO. Analyzing China's role in the SCO and the related opportunities and challenges is the primary goal of this paper. The Chinese government uses economic cooperation to exert influence within the SCO. However, the Chinese government must still overcome numerous challenges, including reconciling mistrust and conflict among SCO member states, reducing Russian suspicion of Chinese intention, response to transformation of the SCO, and dilemmas regarding regional instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the fields of conflict resolution, political science, and history, I am researching the effectiveness of mediating an end to current and future ethnic, territorial conflicts through international law—specifically an international arbitration process. I am using the Brcko Arbitration, completed as part of the Dayton Peace Accords, as a case study of the effectiveness of international arbitration in peace building. After three years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992–1995, Brcko was a multiethnic and multireligious city and was a cultural dividing line between the two ethnically autonomous regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its options were to join either the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had a primarily Bosnian-Muslim and Croatian-Catholic population, or the Republika Srpska, the Christian Orthodox Serbian area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper will analyze the international arbitral process at Brcko and evaluate the three main factors that make this arbitration worthy of continued use in ongoing and future ethnic, territorial conflicts globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China-India relations are becoming increasingly competitive and volatile. The deep-rooted dynamic is the dysfunctioning of the previous interaction framework that had ensured relatively stable bilateral relationship for decades. This paper explores the main obstacles and dynamics of the current China-India relationship, including the border issue, economic relations and the Quad. It also shares some thoughts on what China and India should do to move forward the bilateral relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a framework to analyse partisan debates that involves extracting, classifying and exploring the latent argumentation structure and dynamics of online societal controversies. In this paper, the focus is placed on causal arguments, and the proposed framework is applied to the Twitter debate on the consequences of a hard Brexit scenario. Regular expressions based on causative verbs, structural topic modelling, and dynamic time warping techniques were used to identify partisan faction arguments, as well as their relations, and to infer agenda-setting dynamics. The results highlight that the arguments employed by partisan factions are mostly constructed around constellations of effect-classes based on polarised verb groups. These constellations show that the no-deal debate hinges on structurally balanced building blocks. Brexiteers focus more on arguments related to greenfield trading opportunities and increased autonomy, whereas Remainers argue more about what a no-deal Brexit could destroy, focusing on hard border issues, social tensions in Ireland and Scotland and other economy- and healthcare-related problems. More notably, inferred debate leadership dynamics show that, despite their different usage of terms and arguments, the two factions' argumentation dynamics are strongly intertwined. Moreover, the identified periods in which agenda-setting roles change are linked to major events, such as extensions, elections and the Yellowhammer plan leak, and to new issues that emerged in relation to these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper generalises the classical approach to structural change. • It brings together different ways of aggregating sectors and social groups. • Economic interdependencies can act as constraints to political-economic conflict. • Sectors and groups can hold different understandings of the system. • Such understandings and material and political conditions shape endogenous dynamics. The paper builds on the classical understanding of the interplay between material processes and political conflicts, but generalises it in several key respects. This approach does not assume relevant political-economic aggregations ex ante (such as industries or 'classes'); rather, it explores different possible ways of aggregating social groups and defining their interests depending on the situation under investigation. Moreover, interdependencies in the economy impose the need to keep conflicts within boundaries that are compatible with the viability of the system. Because sectors and groups can be aggregated in different ways, dynamics also depends on how actors represent the system and their position therein, and hence what they understand their interest to be. Different representations give rise to different definitions of competing interests and viability requirements, which in turn generate different endogenous dynamics of the political-economic system. The approach is illustrated through the examples of the Eurozone crisis and Covid-19 crisis. [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]

Many researchers have focused on the role colonialism has played in causing interstate border disputes in Africa. Besides the colonial issue, this paper seeks to investigate what other factors fuel interstate border disputes in Africa and determine how effectively the disputes can be resolved. In recent decades, Africa has been tormented by and is still experiencing numerous interstate border disputes which have serious implications for the disputing states. Some of the disputes are resolved, but violations of human rights and instability still occur in these regions. By analysing the content of some relevant documents and with the use of interviews, this paper reveals that most disputing African states rely heavily on foreign intervention (especially by their erstwhile colonial masters) in the resolution of their disputes. It is argued that African leaders need to be more committed and exhibit better leadership in resolving their border disputes, and that they should always seek the expertise of African forums such as the African Union (AU) before calling for foreign intervention. It is suggested that African leaders and the AU understand the problems of Africans better than anyone else, and they are also the ones mostly greatly affected by these disputes. Thus, there needs to be more of a focus on addressing the root causes of disputes in order to avoid them resurfacing, rather than seeking to merely halt them. [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]

The recent award by an arbitral tribunal in a case brought by the Philippines against China gives lawyers reason to reexamine the historical evidence put forward by claimants in the South China Sea disputes. While the Tribunal was barred from considering territorial or boundary questions, it did cast doubt on the historical narrative rule that China has asserted in support of its claims. Fresh evidence from other sources also suggests that discussions of these matters need to move beyond arguments put forward in a small number of papers published more than thirty years ago. A close examination of the references used in those papers shows that they relied upon highly partisan Chinese sources. Recent historical research has produced new facts about the development of the competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, but international legal discourse has yet to take these findings into account. This article examines some of the key works in the field and calls for them to be reassessed and for future discussion of the disputes to be based upon verifiable and contextualized evidence rather than on nationalist assertions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses news articles covering the clashes between the migrant caravan and border authorities at the Mexico–United States border in American and Central American print media outlets. On the 26th of November 2018, the migrant caravan, who had walked from Central America towards the United States, was stopped by American authorities with the use of rubber bullets and tear gas. This paper examines the language used in newspapers to address the issue, as well as the actors involved with it. This is carried out through analysis in terms of transitivity and vocabulary. The results show an overall depiction of the clashes as a cause–effect event in which the migrants took actions first. This put the actions taken by the border authorities as adequate and expected given what caused them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 27 September 2020, Azerbaijan went to war with Armenia on a scale not seen since the ceasefire of 1994. The conflict ended in another ceasefire on 10 November 2020, however, in addition to the theatre of war, the conflict has been prosecuted and continues to be fought post-ceasefire, through claims to cultural heritage which are employed in international organisations to substantiate the legitimacy of territorial claims. In this paper, we specifically focus on carpets and their display in museums to unpack the relationship between carpet as an instance of instrumentalised cultural heritage and the two countries' territorial conflict and claims. Focusing on two major carpet museums in Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (Shusha) and Azerbaijan (Baku), respectively, we will explain how ostensibly innocuous claims of cultural ownership and authenticity underline territorial claims with violent outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]