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borderland
. This is especially useful when looking at
the cross-boundary interaction between two states.
Finally, a term that is often used in the media when talking about boundaries is
frontier
. To be precise, a frontier refers to the process of territorial expansion in what
are deemed, usually falsely, as “empty” areas. For example, the American frontier
involved the killing, expulsion, and confinement of Native Americans to facilitate the
land’s “settlement” and its integration into the US economy. Even when indigenous
populations were recognized, the creation of a frontier was justified through the language
of religion and civilization: the regional population was a void for Christian practices
to fill and integrate into the Christian realm. Echoes of this language remain today, as
failed states are identified as the repositories of “evil” and, hence, must be brought back
into the international state system and its norms of behavior.
Modern geopolitics was the politics of boundary construction. The building block of
geopolitics was the nation-state, a political geographic entity that required territorial
specificity as the basis for its sovereignty. Boundaries delineated the population and
resources that came under the control of particular states. The geopolitics of mapping
modern boundaries has three stages (Glassner and Fahrer, 2004). First, the course of
the boundary must be
established
. This decision can be made through war, mutual
political agreement, or external imposition. For example, we will see the role of external
states creating the boundary between North and South Korea in a case study later in
this chapter. The political boundaries in the continent of Africa are overwhelmingly the
result of decisions made by colonial powers (Herbst, 2000). Once the boundary has
been established it must be
demarcated
, its course must be made visible. In some cases,
the visibility may not be clear on the actual landscape, but is solely a feature of maps.
One could walk across the boundary without knowing it. In some cases the visibility of
I N T R O D U C T I O N T O G E O P O L I T I C S
132
the demarcation is sporadic; checkpoints exist at trans-boundary roads and railways,
but a fence does not extend along the full extent of the boundary. In extreme cases, the
demarcation of the boundary is a violent expression, a continuous barrier of concrete,
razor-wire, land-mines, attack dogs, and trip-activated machine guns (Figure 6.1). Not
surprisingly, the form of demarcation is related to the degree of
control
, the third
and final component of mapping boundaries (Figure 6.2). Decisions about the nature
and intensity of flows across a border display great variation. North Korea is the most
“closed” of all the contemporary states: goods, people, and information rarely travel
out, and the opposite flow is sparse and completely controlled by the government. In
the United Kingdom, entrance from other EU countries is relatively free, but there are
many restrictions, made as visible by the government as possible for political capital,
on refugees. The degree of control also varies with time; post 9/11 travelers entering
the US have come under much more rigorous inspection, and required documentation
has increased.
With so much effort being put into the establishment, demarcation, and control of
boundaries, one must reflect upon the geopolitical purposes that boundaries serve. Within
the geopolitical context of the War on Terrorism, boundary control is related to
“security.” States maintain their legitimacy, in part, by keeping their citizens safe, and
control of borders is a pivotal factor. For example in the US the Office of Homeland
Security was established in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001 in order
to enhance boundary security. Another example is Israel’s success in establishing its
boundaries in its quest to provide a territorial haven for Jews in a policy of Zionism.
The connection between boundaries and security is more complex than the ability to
prevent invasion or infiltration. National identity is a territorial identity that rests upon
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B O U N D A R Y G E O P O L I T I C S
133
Figure 6.1
Closed border: Egypt–Israel.
the existence of, or desire for, a state with sovereignty over a piece of territory. National
homeland, mythologized as it is, and state authority both rest upon territorial demarca-
tion; boundaries demarcate nations and states and so define nation-states. Boundaries
are, simultaneously, instruments of state policy, the expression and means of govern-
ment power, and markers of national identity (Anderson, 1996). Their role in providing
security extends into the taken for granted nature of national identity and citizen’s expec-
tations of government services.
The converse becomes of interest in discussions of the porosity of boundaries.
If boundary control is, at least in some regions of the world, increasingly beyond
the control of states, then what are the implications for national identity and state
authority? We will address this geopolitical development later in our discussion of
borderlands.
Geopolitical codes and boundary conflicts
Boundary conflicts remain a key motivation for states to go to war or make threats to
do so. Figure 6.3 shows the sorry situation of a fictional country Hypothetica: a country
that suffers from most of the usual grievances over boundary issues that can ignite
conflict (Haggett, 1979). The separate issues can be grouped into four main categories:
identity; control of natural resources; uncertainty over demarcation; and security.
I N T R O D U C T I O N T O G E O P O L I T I C S
134
Figure 6.2
Open border: Russian Caucasus.
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