This manuscript does not aim to resolve ideological, historical, or religious claims over territory. Instead, it examines how contemporary forms of power shape protracted conflict through governance mechanisms that regulate land, labor, and resources. Drawing on conflict transformation theory, political economy, and critical governance studies, the article argues that dominant peace frameworks—centered on territorial partition, security coordination, or economic cooperation—are structurally limited because they leave asymmetric governance arrangements intact. These arrangements enable control without political integration, allowing domination to persist even in the absence of formal annexation. By reframing territorial maximalism as a governance project rather than a purely ideological aspiration, the study demonstrates how expansionist ambitions are operationalized through regulatory authority over space, mobility, and economic life. The case illustration of Jericho shows how localized stability and development initiatives can coexist with deep structural dependency when governance authority is not shared. Economic activity and administrative capacity, often interpreted as indicators of progress, may instead stabilize unequal power relations. To address these limitations, the article advances the concept of cooperative territorial governance as a pathway for conflict transformation independent of final-status agreements. By institutionalizing shared authority over labor regulation, land use, and resource management, this framework challenges governance-based domination and offers a pragmatic foundation for transforming the structural conditions sustaining modern territorial conflicts.

The South China Sea territorial conflict emerged following the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) claim over the Ten-Dash Line, which overlaps with the maritime entitlements of several coastal states, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Natuna area. China bases its claim on historical grounds, a position strongly contested, particularly by the Philippines through arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2013. Despite the arbitral award, the dispute remains unresolved and continues to generate legal and political tensions. This study employs a normative legal research method to examine the legal implications of the Code of Conduct (CoC) and the Joint Development Agreement (JDA) in managing the South China Sea dispute under international law. The analysis is conducted through examination of international legal norms, principles, and relevant instruments, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The study finds that neither the CoC nor the JDA constitutes a legally binding dispute settlement mechanism. Instead, both function primarily as conflict management instruments aimed at preventing escalation and facilitating cooperation. Consequently, reliance on these mechanisms alone is insufficient to ensure certainty or resolve sovereignty disputes.

Abstract Constitutional courts (CCs) in federal and quasi-federal systems are often expected to act as neutral arbiters in conflicts between levels of government. This article challenges that assumption by analysing the behavior of Spain’s Constitutional Court over four decades of constitutional litigation. Drawing on an original dataset of 1,888 rulings on all challenges to national and regional legislation (1981–2023), we examine how judicial outcomes are shaped by political alignment, institutional design, and court ideology. Our analysis reveals a consistent pattern of deference to the central government, especially when the Court is ideologically conservative or aligned with the federal executive. These results support a strategic model of judicial behavior and raise broader questions about the role of CCs in multilevel systems. Rather than acting as counter-majoritarian forces, courts may reinforce central dominance in center–periphery conflicts, limiting their capacity to protect territorial pluralism in practice.

Territorial conflicts have in invariably characterized Kenya’s interaction with her neighbouring countries. Over time, these conflicts have threatened national security, economic stability and international relations of the country with her neighbours. These disputes are based on the colonial-era demarcations of boundaries, historical claims and the struggle over the natural resources that have some of the most prominent cases of the Elemi Triangle, the Migingo Island, the Kenya-Somalia maritime boundary and the Kenya-Tanzania border. This research paper used a convergent mixed-method design to investigate the nature and consequences of these controversies. The secondary and primary sources were used to collect data. The analysis involved the analysis of archival materials, government reports, international court documents, and regional treaties; to be more specific, a purposive sample of forty-five (45) official documents and reports created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the African Union, and the International Court of Justice. Further, twelve (12) professional interviews were conducted to triangulate the findings, and these were conducted with the diplomats, security analysts, and scholars in the field of regional affairs. As has been discussed, unresolved issues on the territories have deteriorated border insecurity and disrupted the cross-border trade and the relationship between the states. Settlements living in the contentious frontiers are continuously displaced, engage in propaganda of resources, and have restricted access to economic opportunities. However, peaceful solutions and collaboration exist through such multilateral systems as the East Africa Community (EAC), the African Union (AU) and the international adjudicatory organs such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The study suggests improved diplomatic bargaining, adherence to international determinations, and shared assistance programs. A well-coordinated border governance strategy that involves community participation, diplomacy, and security is the key to having regional stability, economic integration, and sustainable development.

Due to their biological replicability, seeds pose a significant challenge to the traditional principle of exhaustion of rights, giving rise to issues of territorial conflicts and regulatory gaps in global seed trade. In response, states must establish a system of limited exhaustion rules centered on the control of reproductive rights, constructing a special institutional framework that balances incentives for innovation, public interest, and international coordination. At present, China faces problems in this domain, including legislative ambiguity, insufficient judicial discretion, and weak international coordination. Considering the impact of seeds dual productproduction tool attribute on the theoretical basis of exhaustion of rights, as well as the intrinsic mechanism by which they disrupt the economic reward theory and the implied license theorythereby creating systemic dilemmasa three-dimensional pathway should be developed with limited exhaustion of rights at its core: legislatively, by establishing exceptions for reproductive behavior control rights; judicially, by creating a three-step analytical adjudication framework; and internationally, by promoting the formulation of special and differentiated exhaustion clauses and bilateral recognition mechanisms.

Intimacy-informed passenger clustering and territorial conflicts in subway environments

This study examines the territorial conflict surrounding the Rempang Eco City development project in the Riau Islands, designated as a National Strategic Project (PSN) valued at IDR 381 trillion. The conflict emerged from the clash between large-scale investment-driven development interests and the traditional land rights of the 16 Malay Indigenous Villages that have inhabited the area for generations. The lack of communication and transparency from both central and regional governments regarding relocation plans triggered mass protests and violent clashes in September 2023. This research employs a qualitative method based on John W. Creswell’s framework, utilizing case study and phenomenological approaches. Data were collected from credible sources, including official reports, government documents, and reputable online media. The analysis applies Johan Galtung’s theory, particularly the Triangle of Violence, to identify and interpret the forms of conflict and violence that occur. The results show that the conflict reflects both structural and direct violence, where structural violence appears in relocation policies that disregard the legal recognition of indigenous land rights, while direct violence is evident in the repressive actions of security forces against protesting residents. The findings further indicate that despite the government’s humanistic approach in preparing relocation sites and facilities, community resistance remains strong due to unresolved issues of justice, identity, and cultural preservation. Overall, these findings emphasize the urgent need for participatory and equitable conflict resolution frameworks in implementing sustainable development projects across Indonesia.

Purpose This paper aims to examine how Irish and British civil servants contributed to structuring the political and procedural conditions for peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. It asks what kind of governance architecture enabled compromise across conflict lines and who was responsible for its design and operation. The article conceptualises these officials as metagovernors – actors who shape the frameworks through which governance occurs – in a context marked by territorial contestation and institutional fragility. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative design combining extensive archival research with semi-structured elite interviews to trace how civil servants in Dublin and London co-produced governance environments between the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998). It draws on insights from public administration, peacebuilding and conflict management to develop a metagovernance lens tailored to divided societies. Findings British and Irish civil servants played a central, though often overlooked, role in enabling the peace process. Beyond implementing policy, they actively designed relational, procedural and spatial infrastructures that facilitated cross-border cooperation, managed institutional trust and embedded compromise into the evolving architecture of peace. The paper introduces the concept of structures of continuity to capture the informal yet enduring bureaucratic practices that sustained coordination across moments of political rupture. Originality/value This paper repositions civil servants as strategic actors in conflict management and peacebuilding. It advances a novel analytical framework that integrates metagovernance theory with empirical research on territorial conflict, offering transferable insights into how bureaucratic agency, institutional memory and elite communication shape peace processes.

The consolidation of livestock farming in the Amazon constitutes one of the main drivers of Brazil's neo-extractivist development model, marked by the intensive exploitation of natural resources and the export of commodities. In Rondônia, this process is clearly expressed in the conversion of extensive forest areas into pastureland, resulting in accelerated deforestation, ecosystem degradation, and direct threats to biodiversity and traditional populations. The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory, located in one of the regions most under pressure for land tenure in the state, is a prime example of the effects of this expansion: invasions, land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and territorial conflicts have compromised both the environmental integrity and the sociocultural reproduction of indigenous peoples. This article aims to analyze the impacts of the expansion of livestock farming in Rondônia, focusing on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory, discussing how the neo-extractivist model, government incentives, and historically implemented public policies have contributed to the intensification of pressures on indigenous territories and the vulnerability of their ways of life.

Land and agrarian conflicts have intensified Colombia’s internal war, particularly through land grabbing and dispossession, victimizing rural communities. National policies have favored industrial agriculture while marginalizing traditional smallholder practices. In the Colombian Caribbean region, this has hindered campesino livelihoods and biocultural memory. This research examines how agrarian conflicts have influenced agricultural practices and local crop diversity at the scale of a campesino community. It offers insights into the links between agrarian conflicts, transformations in local food systems, and the erosion of biocultural memory. Drawing on concepts from agrobiodiversity, biocultural memory, and political ecology, this study uses social mapping and historical analysis to assess how people experience spatiotemporal changes in land use and crop diversity. The findings show that people connect the decrease in crop diversity to wider changes in the food system, the effects of the violent agrarian conflict, and the expansion of industrial agriculture supported by the State.

This article examines how modern superpowers balance strategic interests against the constraints of international law. Specifically, it examines the United States, China, and Russia and how legal rules are used, reinterpreted, or circumvented to legitimize behavior in military intervention, nuclear policy, and territorial conflict. The study focuses on the continued tension between power and principle and whether or not international law really constrains superpowers or is a mainly legitimizing instrument.

Sleep is an important but overlooked component of animal behaviour, especially its social and conservation facets. Here, we use 15 years of data to comprehensively describe the roosting behaviour of cooperatively breeding birds and test hypotheses about its ecological and social determinants. We show that wild Arabian babbler groups in the Arava Desert of Israel preferred roosting in live plants with dense canopies (mostly Acacia tree spp. and reed clusters). Roosting sites were located in the inner areas of territories regardless of territorial conflicts. Groups almost always roosted in intimate huddles but tended to separate into sub-groups that roost in nearby trees as group size increased. Despite the abundance of suitable sites for roosting, each group only used an average of 2.4 main roosting sites within its territory. Social groups thus exhibited strong, non-random fidelity to specific roosting sites that extended over ≥4 group generations and ≥15 years. To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest roosting site fidelity shown for cooperatively breeding birds and mammals. This study stresses the importance of conserving roosting sites of species with strong site fidelity and lays the foundations for advanced sleep research in a highly cooperative species.

The sustainable management of forest supply chains is particularly challenging in regions affected by socio-territorial conflicts, such as southern Chile, where Indigenous land claims and environmental concerns complicate operations. This study develops and applies a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to support tactical planning of the forest-to-lumber supply chain. The model operates the three pillars of sustainability through representative variables: raw material consumption (economic efficiency), transport distance (environmental impact), and exposure to territorial conflicts (social risk). These sustainability dimensions are consistent with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Computational experiments reveal Pareto trade-offs between productive efficiency and social vulnerability, showing that simpler logistics networks can substantially reduce conflict exposure without significant efficiency losses. Additionally, the strategy of minimizing the production of lumber that does not have immediate demand also helps reduce log consumption and improves log yield. The results provide a decision-oriented framework for conflict-sensitive supply chain planning, contributing to more resilient, socially responsible, and sustainable forest operations in Chile.

In recent years, the banking system worldwide and especially in the Republic of Armenia (RA) has undergone significant changes. In 11 years period (2014-2024) the banking system of RA went through various challanges: in fact of Equity normative level was increased many banks had to merge and acquire, Covid-19 pandemic led to changes in government policy, in 2020 there was a territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan which led some banks to change their territorial location. Besides, many changes in banking regulation strengthened the role of banks and banking regulation and led to a continuous rise in profitability. The conducted research aims to discover: • What main factors impact the banking system’s profitability in RA, • What factors have the most impact on the latter, • Whether banking system profitability in RA has the potential to rise in the predicted two years. For that purpose, DuPont analyses were performed, and five-factor analyses were done to understand which indicators influence the RA banking system’s profitability the most, to what extent and how. Next, the Trend Lines for three main indicators (ROE, ROS, and IB) were constructed to predict the profitability of the banking system for the next two years. The analyses were performed using Excel’s predictive tools for 2014- 2024 data for the entire banking system. Analysed results let us conclude that the RA banking system is rapidly growing and ROE changes were driven not only by internal banking indicators but also by changes in legislation in RA.

Abstract This study explores discourses about the Russo-Ukrainian war as presented in American and British opinion articles featured in the Ukrainian press between March and October 2023. This period was marked by intense debate in Western media concerning Ukraine’s counter-offensive which commenced in early June 2023. Using critical discourse analysis, the research deconstructs the discourses, examining their key elements such as representations defining the nature of the war and its opposing sides, as well as representations of specific aspects of the war that are framed contentiously across the research corpus. These aspects include Ukraine’s deep strikes into Russia, the war’s costs for Russia, territorial de-occupation, and potential pathways to peace. The analysis reveals three distinct discourses: the first portrays the war as an attack on the international order, an imperialist war, and a genocidal war; the second frames it as an unwinnable territorial conflict; and the third defines it as Putin’s war against the West. These discourses resonate with previous findings from before the full-scale invasion in February 2022, while also showing a certain evolution in their framing.

The present study aims to understand how the creation of the Jacupiranga Mosaic (Mojac) can be interpreted as a form of governance oriented toward the common good, considering sustainable development, land tenure conflicts, and the role of local communities, especially quilombola communities, in the Vale do Ribeira region, São Paulo. The analysis is grounded in theoretical frameworks on shared governance and based on a documentary survey of legislation, public policies, and news reports, as well as interviews with nine actors directly involved in the Mojac, including representatives of traditional and quilombola communities, local managers, and farmers. The study also involved in situ observation of two quilombola communities in the region. The study assumes that territorial conflicts stem not only from opposing interests but also from the historical denial of territorial and cultural rights of local populations. The results indicate that, although the Mojac represents a significant effort to coordinate different sectors and objectives such as environmental conservation and sustainable resource use, its effectiveness is constrained by structural challenges. These include limited representativeness in management councils, difficulties for quilombola and traditional communities to access decision-making spaces, scarce resources, and conflicts between conservation goals and local economic practices. It is concluded that the Mojac constitutes a promising initiative but still needs to overcome institutional barriers and strengthen its participatory base to consolidate itself as a governance model oriented toward the common good, capable of integrating environmental conservation with recognition of quilombola and traditional ways of life in the Vale do Ribeira.

This Theory into Practice article explores the emergence of the National Independent Union of Automotive Industry Workers (SINTTIA) at General Motors Guanajuato, where workers challenged entrenched corporatist union structures through grassroots mobilisation. Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork including interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, the article traces how democratic organising was shaped by labour agency, solidarity networks, and navigation of territorial conflicts. While Mexico’s 2019 labour reform and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism opened formal pathways, the case shows that institutional change was insufficient without worker-led action. In a sector marked by low automation and inequality, SINTTIA’s experience offers situated insights into labour transformations and the contestation of structural violence.

Abstract There is widespread consensus in peace research that territorial conflicts are more enduring and difficult to settle than non-territorial conflicts. However, theoretical explanations for this relationship vary. We apply a new conceptual framework to integrate existing explanations into a broader theory. We highlight how earlier work suggests alternative mechanisms: either actors in territorial intra-state conflicts are less willing to compromise at the negotiation table, or the most relevant negotiation issues on the table in territorial conflicts are particularly difficult. This theoretical argument directly translates into a statistical model, enabling us to measure and compare the latent compromise propensity and the relative difficulty of negotiated provisions in territorial versus non-territorial conflicts. In a preregistered analysis, we find that comprehensive peace agreements are less likely in territorial civil wars because provisions primarily relevant in territorial conflicts are particularly difficult. Further analyses show that territorial conflicts also have a lower overall compromise propensity than government conflicts, but specific context characteristics in territorial conflicts explain this difference.

Abstract This paper learns from the Spatial Academy at Universidad de Las Américas in Santiago de Chile, reflecting on it as a model of radical pedagogy that challenges traditional architectural training within contexts of neoliberal inequality. Through the use of interviews with teaching staff and documentary analysis, it identifies its practice as a pedagogical anarchitecture, going back to Gordon Matta-Clark’s nomenclature, an approach that dismantles individual authorship, technical solutionism, and disciplinary authority. Its core is the design-build project, wherein students and communities co-design ephemeral interventions that prioritize relational processes over physical products, thereby activating collective memory and territorial conflicts. This pedagogy operates through four shifts: (i) from individual authorship to collective production; (ii) from the object to the process; (iii) from technical solutions to conflict as a driving force; and (iv) from rigid curricula to critical action. This experience offers a replicable framework for the Global South by training architects as socio-spatial mediators capable of contesting urban injustices through situated and collaborative practices.

Han Kang’s Human Acts (2014) explores the clouded boundaries between life and death, authority and rebellion, and presence and absence. This study examines how characters like Dong-ho and Jeong-dae embody the tension between legitimate and illegitimate power, reflecting on how these blurred lines affect individual identity and collective resistance. Using a qualitative textual analysis grounded in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands Theory and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of liminal space, the research argues that conflict resolution lies in recognizing the "in-between"—a "transitional space where binaries collapse and transformation occurs. The study portrays how the merging of symbolic and physical spaces and the blurring of power structures reveal a third space where social rupture can be understood and healed. Ultimately, the study underscores how identifying this liminal zone helps dismantle rigid hierarchies and opens possibilities for collective renewal and emotional catharsis. Posthumous narration blurs the line between life and death, the transformation of the soul obliterates physical and symbolic space, and a role reversal blurs the authoritative and unauthoritative power. Recognition of the liminal space, in other words, the third space, minimizes territorial conflict, maximizes the financial and power-related boundaries that, in turn, synchronize national and international relations among people.