Contiguous Borders Research Articles

Environmental Peacebuilding: Moving beyond resolving Violence-Ridden conflicts to sustaining peace

The literature on environmental peacebuilding (EP) is focused on overcoming or preventing violent conflict using environmental collaboration (EC), typically on common environmental issues between two or more parties. When environmental peacebuilding focuses on international conflicts, parties involved are mostly neighboring states. In this article, we examine whether the concept of environmental peacebuilding can be used in contexts where violence is not a major issue, and for other purposes such as to sustain a peace agreement and reduce the existential threat of climate change. Another contribution to extant literature is the analysis of EP between states with no contiguous borders, which is critical around issues of climate change and international cooperation on it. We include the concept of ‘Climate Resilient Peace’ into our framework, highlighting the importance of climate resilience for nations and communities as a foundation for promoting lasting peace. EC between Israel and the United Arab Emirates serves as our empirical test. Through expert interviews and media analyses, we researched the multifaceted value of EC. Such EC, we believe, has the potential to lead to symbolic rapprochement between states, the reduction of climate risks, and can ultimately move to substantial integration. Substantial integration being the coordination and interdependence with tangible international institutional and trans-societal links. Acknowledging each other as mutually beneficial partners allows the seizing of environmental, political, and social spillovers from EC. Ultimately, it increases satisfaction with the peace agreement. The Israel-UAE case demonstrates how EC can enhance regional stability and facilitate cooperation. This could be applied to other climate change-affected and conflict-torn regions, in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond.

The Vietnamese Migrant Community in Laos: Social Stratification and Diversity (1893–1945)

Abstract As Vietnam and Laos share extensive and contiguous borders, there is a long history of Vietnamese migrations into Laos. From 1893 to 1945, the French colonial administration of Indochina brought many Vietnamese people to Laos, who later formed a large Vietnamese community there. Given Laos's small population, the French colonial government had to rely on the Vietnamese labor force to build a new colonial regime and infrastructure and exploit its natural resources. Most of these immigrants came from the more populated areas in Tonkin and Annam. They worked in various roles such as civil servants, soldiers, workers, or coolies depending on the needs of the French colonial government and business. While qualified civil servants, including interpreters, secretaries, teachers, nurses, and soldiers, earned better salaries and welfare, free workers and coolies were subject to low social status and hard working conditions. This article describes how the colonial system of wages and occupations contributed to social stratification and diversity within the Vietnamese migrant community and shaped migrants’ diverse responses to French colonial rule.

Unraveling the driving factors of the plastic waste trade network formation and dynamics

International trade of plastic waste promotes the global plastic circular economy and improves resource efficiency, but exacerbates the ubiquitous plastic pollution. Understanding the drivers behind the evolution of the global plastic waste trade network (GPWTN) is pivotal for developing new international instruments to end plastic pollution and fostering clean solid-waste trade. Employing social network analysis (SNA) and quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) model, this study structures the GPWTN using bilateral trade data, revealing shifts from highly centralized to cross-layered networks and relevant drivers. It is suggested that Malaysia and Turkey has become the new key recipients of the GPWTN, replacing China, accompanied by the launch of new environmental regulations in some countries. Transportation cost is the most critical factor for the formation of the GPWTN, followed by gaps in resource demand, bio-based resource availability, and transportation accessibility. Trading partners in closer proximity, especially those with contiguous borders, are more likely to trade in waste plastics, while coastal countries play an important role in these partnerships. Economies with more abundant biomaterials, higher incomes, and greater environmental burdens are more likely to be exporters, while economies with scarcer resources and more compelling demands are more likely to import plastic waste. Countries involved in the trade in plastic waste, as either importers or exporters, receive varying degrees of economic benefits but bear potential environmental impacts. Therefore, global plastic pollution control and trade prosperity necessitates necessitate coordinated endeavors from nations and intergovernmental bodies for a mutually advantageous denouement.

PAKISTAN'S DEFENCE IN THE CHANGED SOUTH ASIAN SCENARIO

The month of May 1998, opened a new chapter in the history of South Asia. The test conducted by India totally destabilized the region. Sanity was restored after Pakistan's display of nuclear prowess. However, the strategic outlook had been irrevocably altered in a manner, where-by, two nuclear weapon states are facing each other across contiguous borders. Probably the Indian aim of the Pokhran II initiative was to confirm the development of a bomb design suited for deployment atop the Agni missile. The immediate decision to go ahead could have been spurred by the successful Pakistani test of Ghauri Missile. Another reason was the belief of Hindu leadership, that "nuclear weapons are a symbol of international power and prestige". There is, however, no doubt that the main reason for the Indian initiative was to further her hegemonic designs by acquiring and flaunting the capability. (Vaughn, 2007, January). We must understand the multifarious changes associated with this development and carry out a reappraisal of Pakistan's security considerations. Today, we stand at a crossroads, the decisions taken now would shape our destiny. They would either secure the future of our generations or put them under the constant threat of a holocaust. The changed scenario has amplified existing national security issues such as internal strife in the form of regional and provincialdisputes, acts of terrorism manifested in the form of religious and ethnic divides, economic constraints and lastly, the need for an immediate up-gradation of our conventional military hardware. The defence of the country from internal threats is as important as defence against an external aggressor. While considering security matters, vital national compulsions like Pakistan's support for the Kashmir cause, need to be accorded priority. Pakistan has been able to internationalize the issue. The changed scenario is well suited to keep up the pressure

Trade agreements and subnational income of border regions

AbstractThis paper analyses the differential effect of trade agreements on income per capita of subnational regions with international borders. We construct an extensive panel dataset covering 1350 regions in 86 countries worldwide between 1950 and 2017. Our results show that trade agreements are positively associated with income per capita of regions sharing contiguous borders with trading partners, relative to regions sharing borders with countries with whom no trade agreements exist. For border regions, the positive relationship of trade agreements and regional income roughly compensates potential income disadvantages of having international borders. These insights help in explaining and mitigating regional inequalities.

How Does Bilateral Trade and Other Socio-Economic Factors Influence: The International Migration Flows in ASEAN Countries

This study utilizes the gravity model and various estimation methods such as OLS, FGLS, and GMM to analyze the effects of bilateral trade and other factors on migration flows in ASEAN countries. Specifically, the study examines the impacts of population, gross domestic product per capita, rule of law, human development index, and the contiguous border between two countries. The results indicate that bilateral trade and lagged migration flows have a positive effect on migration, while the population has a negative effect. The study finds that bilateral trade encourages more people to migrate from one country to another country and that migration flows display a high degree of persistence over time. Additionally, the study finds that contiguous borders also have a positive impact on migration. Furthermore, the study suggests that the size of the population's impact on migration flows may be increasing due to the surplus of labor in some areas and the lack of labor in others. Interestingly, the study also finds that higher levels of human development in the destination country may lead to a decrease in international migration flows, possibly due to the availability of better educational opportunities.

Take up #9 as a semantic isogloss on the Canada‐US border

ABSTRACTThis paper explores semantic isoglosses of polysemous words, an understudied aspect of the Canada‐US border by drawing on take up #9, an isogloss that appears to be spreading through the mainland Canadian population. The variable, which is approached from a philological‐lexicographic as well as a quantitative‐statistical perspective, is interpreted in the light of recent European cross‐borders studies. Analogues with the situations in Austrian German (Austria‐Germany) and British English (Scotland‐England) are drawn. Set in a pluricentric framework, this paper argues that the Canada‐US border remains a productive linguistic divide. Moreover, it is suggested that types of unexplored lexico‐semantic variables may be responsible for some identity work across this international border, one of only two contiguous borders among the Englishes of the Inner Circle.

Crosshatching incision technique in septoplasty: Experimental outcomes under actual surgical settings.

In previous experiments, the crosshatching incision has been shown to be an effective method for the correction of cartilaginous deviations. Although the settings of the experiments were different from that of septoplasty, the crosshatching incision has been considered a useful method for septoplasty. Therefore, we attempted to determine the efficacy of the crosshatching incision technique under actual septoplasty surgical settings. Commercial pig ear cartilages were used for the following experiments: firstly, the crosshatching incision was performed with the cartilage in a partially fixed state (in order to approximate caudal and dorsal fixation of septal cartilage); secondly, for the purpose of approximating L-strut preservation in septoplasty, the crosshatching incision was performed while excluding a marginal area of 1cm on any two contiguous borders. After the experiments, the change of curvature was assessed. Under fixation of two contiguous borders, the curvature of the cartilage did not straighten after using the crosshatching incision. Incisions preserving the L-strut were not effective either. Furthermore, unpredicted deviation and splitting of the cartilage developed after the crosshatching incision. Under actual surgical settings, the crosshatching incision was ineffective for the correction of septal deviation. Therefore, usefulness of the crosshatching incision needs to be re-evaluated.

Using geographical information systems and cartograms as a health service quality improvement tool

IntroductionDisease prevalence can be spatially analysed to provide support for service implementation and health care planning, these analyses often display geographic variation. A key challenge is to communicate these results to decision makers, with variable levels of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) knowledge, in a way that represents the data and allows for comprehension. The present research describes the combination of established GIS methods and software tools to produce a novel technique of visualising disease admissions and to help prevent misinterpretation of data and less optimal decision making. The aim of this paper is to provide a tool that supports the ability of decision makers and service teams within health care settings to develop services more efficiently and better cater to the population; this tool has the advantage of information on the position of populations, the size of populations and the severity of disease. MethodsA standard choropleth of the study region, London, is used to visualise total emergency admission values for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and bronchiectasis using ESRI’s ArcGIS software. Population estimates of the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are then used with the ScapeToad cartogram software tool, with the aim of visualising geography at uniform population density. An interpolation surface, in this case ArcGIS’ spline tool, allows the creation of a smooth surface over the LSOA centroids for admission values on both standard and cartogram geographies. The final product of this research is the novel Cartogram Interpolation Surface (CartIS). ResultsThe method provides a series of outputs culminating in the CartIS, applying an interpolation surface to a uniform population density. The cartogram effectively equalises the population density to remove visual bias from areas with a smaller population, while maintaining contiguous borders. CartIS decreases the number of extreme positive values not present in the underlying data as can be found in interpolation surfaces. DiscussionThis methodology provides a technique for combining simple GIS tools to create a novel output, CartIS, in a health service context with the key aim of improving visualisation communication techniques which highlight variation in small scale geographies across large regions. CartIS more faithfully represents the data than interpolation, and visually highlights areas of extreme value more than cartograms, when either is used in isolation.

Lateral extent and ventral laminar attachments of the lumbar ligamentum flavum: cadaveric study

Background contextCadaveric descriptions of the deep layer of the lumbar ligamentum flavum (LF), extending between contiguous borders of adjacent laminae and into the lateral spinal canal region are limited. PurposeTo provide detailed descriptions of the lumbar LF. Study designCadaveric dissection. MethodsThe deep ligamentum flava of 14 formalin-fixed human cadaver lumbar spines (140 levels) were examined to assess their laminar attachments and lateral extents in relation to the intervertebral foramen. ResultsThe variable attachment of the deep layer of the LF with respect to the cephalad and caudad laminae was identified and described. At each successive caudal level of the lumbar spine, the deep layer appeared to become a more prominent feature of the posterior vertebral column, lining more of the laminae to which it is attached and encroaching further into the posteroinferior region of the intervertebral foramen at its lateral margins. ConclusionsWe describe our observations of the deep LF in the human lumbar spine. These observations have clinical relevance for the interpretation of radiologic imaging and the performance of adequate decompression in the setting of spinal stenosis.

The Effects of Credit Competition on Banks’ Loan Loss Provision Timeliness: A Natural Experiment Across Contiguous State Borders

Using interstate branching deregulation across contiguous counties of adjacent states, we investigate the effect of entry threat on incumbent banks’ loan loss provisions. Incumbents exposed to threat have offsetting incentives to report provisions; lower provisions make incumbents’ loan underwriting quality appear better, deterring entry, but local economic conditions appear better, encouraging entry. We find that the incentive to increase apparent loan underwriting quality dominates on average. We further find that this incentive is stronger in counties with a higher proportion of heterogeneous loans, and the other incentive dominates in counties with both few heterogeneous loans and highly volatile economic conditions.

Disparity Context Processing in the Primate Brain: And If the Question was Both ?What? and ?When??

Disparity Context Processing in the Primate Brain: And If the Question was Both ?What? and ?When??

The Nature of Borders and International Conflict: Revisiting Hypotheses on Territory

This study examines the utility of moving beyond a simple “on–off” dichotomous view of contiguous land borders. For each of the 301 contiguous land borders between states in the international system, measures of ease of interaction, salience, and overall border “vitalness” have been developed using Geographical Information Systems technology. These variables are used to test two major extant lines of thought in international relations literature, as well as our proposed alternative, regarding the expected effect of the “nature” of borders on interstate behavior. We conclude not only that the “nature” of contiguous borders matters but also that the relationship between each of the three border measures and the likelihood of conflict is curvilinear concave—with both high ease of interaction and high salience related to lower levels of conflict, and the middle range of both variables related to higher levels of conflict.

Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion

This article quantifies the impact of civil wars on economic growth at home and in nearby countries. Three alternative measures of nearness—contiguity, length of contiguous borders, and distance of closest approach—are used to capture the spatial dispersion of civil war consequences. We present short‐run panel estimates (at five‐year intervals) and long‐run (1961–95) panel estimates for the world. Generally, the distance measures, novel to this study, and not contiguity provides the most accurate measure of the diffusion of the negative economic consequences of civil wars on other countries. Unlike earlier studies, we also investigate the temporal influence of civil wars on growth at home and in nearby countries. Both the duration and the timing of civil wars have an economic impact.

The 'Nature' of Contiguous Borders: Ease of Interaction, Salience, and the Analysis of Crisis

This paper presents the dataset developed from an NSF-supported project on reconceptualizing borders through the use of geographical information systems (GIS). After presenting an overview of the 301 contiguous land borders which were remeasured in terms of ease of interaction (opportunity), and salience/importance (willingness), the dataset is used to revisit hypotheses dealing with territory and borders, specifically four hypotheses developed by Brecher and Wilkenfeld (1997) from their International Crisis Behavior (ICB) project. The results support the design and purpose of the GIS project of reconceptualizing borders, which breaks away from the dichotomous characterization of states as contiguous or non-contiguous in order to examine the "nature" of borders. Our results do not fit the expectations of the "standard" adversarial proximity conflict model, and demonstrate that the border reconceptualization presented here can be used to investigate a number of related questions in the study of international politics involving both cooperative processes as well as conflictual ones.

Using geographic information systems to revisit enduring rivalries: The case of Israel1

This article derives from a project which has developed a major reconceptualization and revision of how borders may be seen and measured through the use of GIS. This reconceptualization permits an investigation of the specific qualities of borders in terms of opportunity and willingness: ease of interaction and salience, respectively. Data generated by the GIS reconceptualization ‐ both maps and numerical measures ‐ are used to look at the nature of the contiguous borders that link enduring rivalry dyads, with a specific focus on Israeli borders. Even as a first‐cut, the GIS‐based reconceptualization is demonstrated to be of use by highlighting areas of opportunity and/or salience and informing policy choices.

A Program for Gathering Information on the Peasant Commune and Family

Its type in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Commune and rural society. The mir meeting and its connection with the type of commune. The land fund of the commune. Contiguous land borders, farming in strips (between villages, within villages), peasant allotments. Preservation of land use by seizure, its connection with commune land use. Collective associations in the community; makeup, nature of activity, basis of the joint economy (tradition; necessity of association). Type of association: joint household or work assistance.

Crossing Contamination along Contiguous Borders of Certified Alfalfa Seed Fields1

Multiple pest resistant alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cultivars in commercial production were used to study cross‐pollination along contiguous borders using contrasting levels of disease and insect resistance. Twenty‐eight seed samples were obtained from each of 3 cultivars and 26 from the fourth cultivar. In 110 sample comparisons with foundation and certified lots, only five departures from expected levels of resistance were found. Departures appeared to be random in relation to distance from foreign pollen source and leafcutter bee, Megachile rotundata (F.), locations and were interpreted as sampling variations. Thus the data indicated that isolation requirements for production of certified seed in fields larger than 2 ha using M. rotundata (F.) as pollinators could be less stringent than current standards without sacrificing the integrity of the cultivar.