Documenting Territory: Passportisation,Territory, and Exception in Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Despite the crucial role it played in the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, the phenomenon of passportisation has not received a great deal of scholarly attention. Much of the literature has treated the mass distribution of Russian passports to the residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as little more than a strategy to manufacture an excuse to go to war with Georgia. Drawing on recent scholarship on territory and territoriality, as well as with literature addressing Agamben's theories of exceptional spaces, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of passportisation by analysing the territorial effects it produced. It argues that the wholesale conversion of Abkhazians and South Ossetians into Russian citizens did not merely manufacture a casus belli, it also produced exceptional spaces within the territory of the Republic of Georgia, where the norms of international law and the modern state system were effectively suspended.     

International law as a moral theory of state territory?

Current states face challenges from other states and secessionist movements, and no moral theory exists to evaluate these conflicting claims. One step towards a theory is to evaluate international law on territory, specifically as articulated through decolonisation. I argue that international law does not provide a plausible moral theory of territory because the principles of territorial integrity and uti possidetis cannot coherently coexist with the principle of self‐determination. I suggest that philosophers must choose between viewing territory as an expression of national self or as a property right, or else develop a third view from sources beyond current international law.     

The division of labor is limited by the extent of the law

The present paper starts from the observation that there is still no analysis of private law as a basis for international trade, i. e. private transactions between noncompatriots (cf. Schmidt-Trenz 1990). Although authors like Buchanan, Hayek, Williamson, Böhm and Eucken have talked about the significance of a system of private law for the coordination of private transactions, they left out of their analysis the domain of protective state activity in international private business transactions vis-à-vis the multitude of legal orders and national enforcement organs. p ]It is the intention of this paper to focus upon the problems of the coordination of private foreign trade activities in the shadow of the territoriality of law. Specifically, it is asked: What are the causes for the fragmentation of private law in the world, and what are the consequences of the territoriality of law for the coordination of decisions concerning transactions between non-compatriots? The paper also deals with the question of how international coordination-efficiency can be fostered by international constitutional policy.     

领地行为对知识创新的影响路径

基于心理所有权理论,以58个团队主管和229个团队成员样本为调研对象,构建并验证了感知知识所有权-领地行为-知识创新（知识集成和知识创新）作用机制模型。结果表明,感知知识所有权、领地行为对知识创新过程的影响机制存在差异性：①感知知识所有权对知识集成具有显著正向影响,而对知识创造具有显著负向影响;②领地行为在感知知识所有权对知识集成和知识创造的影响中起中介作用;③团队心理安全调节感知知识所有权与知识领地行为的关系。高团队心理安全可以减弱感知知识所有权对领地行为的正向影响,低团队心理安全有助于增强感知知识所有权对领地行为的正向影响。团队心理安全在一定程度上调节了领地行为对感知知识所有权与知识集成和知识创造的中介作用。     

The Logic of Political Territoriality

The creation of an undivided Europe without borders raises questions about the present-day significance of political territoriality in Europe. The article presents a conceptualisation of political territoriality to indicate its significance. Political territoriality is defined here as an active strategy to control by controlling a geographical area. The implications of territorial control are labelled here the logic of territoriality, comprising geographical fixity, impersonality, geographical inclusion/exclusion and centrality. The more salient territorial control is, the more this logic of territoriality leaves its imprint on policies, politics and polities. This variable conceptualisation of political territoriality not only allows for more refined comparisons of time and place in Europe and elsewhere than a rigid Westphalian understanding of territoriality would. It also enables one to determine where and when making the fundamental distinction in the discipline of political science between Comparative Politics and International Relations is justified, providing a common vocabulary for both disciplines in analysing changing political territoriality.     

Territorial state capacity and elite violence from the 6th to the 19th century

We present new evidence for elite violence using regicide, the killing of kings, and investigate the role of the state in European violence between the 6th and 19th centuries. First, regicide is critically assessed as a proxy for interpersonal elite violence. Second, we propose ‘territorial state capacity’ as a measure of states being able to keep or even expand their territories. We find a negative correlation between the changes in territorial state capacity and the changes in elite violence. This could be interpreted in two ways, either that growing territorial state capacity enabled human society to reduce violence, or that a higher regicide rate resulted in lower territorial state capacity. Another possibility would be a bidirectional mechanism that resulted in a co-evolution of the two variables.     

论确立国家犯罪的理论依据

国家是国际法中的责任主体,只要违背国际社会义务,触犯国际法,理当承担法律责任;国家是国际社会的＂法人＂实体,拥有自己的意志和行为,具有犯罪的意图和能力,能够承担刑事责任。确立国家犯罪及其刑事责任,有着充分的理论依据。     

The Production of Territory in North Korea: ‘Security First,Economy Next’

One of the prevalent stereotypes about North Korea is that it is the world's most isolated country. This view derives from North Korea's ruling ideology – juche – which calls for territorial isolation from external influences. For this reason, any territorial strategy like the introduction of special economic zones is generally regarded as an inevitable economic choice forced upon it. However, I argue that it is not that North Korea has no choice but to open its territory due to economic suffering but that North Korea's own territorial imperative, ‘security first, economy next,’ determines how it produces territory. To do so it deploys various territorial strategies such as de-bordering, re-bordering, and zoning. In this sense, North Korea's production of territory manifests Jean Gottmann's idea of territory first as shelter for security and next as a springboard for opportunity.     

Territorial Borders,International Ethics and Geography: Do Good Fences Still Make Good Neighbours?

The article surveys and summarises recent literature in political geography and normative international relations theory to highlight how territorial borders are increasingly regarded as social phenomena, rather than material facts, and how this opens them to ethical and normative critique. The article suggests this is a line of enquiry that has yet to be fully developed. In order to do so, though, it is necessary to recognise the ontological sedimentation and power of territorial borders understood as fences between states, suggesting that ontologically minimalist methodologies may be inappropriate. From here, the article argues that an ethically plausible defence of territorial borders-as-fences can be made, but only by scaling back the role that territorial borders play and linking it more closely to the role of borders in making possible and meaningful human ethical life.     

States and Caliphates

ABSTRACT

At the end of June 2014, Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi, the leader of what was to become Da’ish or the Islamic State, announced at the main mosque in Mosul the creation of an ‘Islamic caliphate’ with himself as caliph. With its creation, he announced, the division of the Middle East, forced upon the region by the 1916 Sykes–Picot agreement, was ended, to be replaced by a territorially limitless caliphate for all Muslims. Despite the obvious political rhetoric that the announcement involved, al-Baghdadi’s aspirations raised interesting questions of historical and legal interpretation. Quite apart from what the Sykes–Picot agreement actually established, to what extent, for instance, is there an innate contradiction between visions of state and boundary in international law and the Islamic concept of the caliphate? How have those concepts evolved over the past century and how inimical are contemporary views of ‘the caliphate’ to established principles of territorial delimitation? And, to what extent do the actual territorial delimitations of Middle Eastern states reflect pre-colonial patterns of spatial division rather than simply the consequences of colonial imposition? How distinct, in short, are the apparently opposed concepts of state and caliphate in the contemporary world? This article will attempt to show that the points of similarity between them are probably far greater than is usually recognised.     

Deterritorialisation and the Transformation of Statehood: The Paradox of Globalisation

Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security situation. In addition to state-to-state threats, transnational security issues have risen to previously unknown relevance. I will argue that – in order to create effective counter-policies against transnational threats – states must transform fundamental principles of traditional statehood according to the logic of global deterritorialisation. To develop this argument, the nature of changed security will be analysed which itself can be found in de-territorialisation: transnational actors withdraw from the territorial principles of traditional security, as best epitomised by transnational terrorism. Consequently, ‘national security’, developed according to the territorial ‘inside’-‘outside’-logic of the state, no longer counters those actors. States must elaborate deterritorial strategies. This development causes a transformation of the state since territoriality is the basic principle of modern statehood. Thus, the reassertion of the state in global security unveils a paradox: to react to deterritorialised security and to reassure their power in global politics, states must overcome their traditional principles of territorial politics and further the development of deterritorialisation.     

Discussing the Couto Mixto (Galicia,Spain): Transcending the Territorial Trap Through Borderscapes and Border Poetics Analyses

The assumption that the border between Spain and Portugal is a stable one since medieval times is commonplace. Thus, the territorial trap conception, as defined by John Agnew, dominates understanding of this border. This paper will focus on a specific border area, the Couto Mixto, in an effort to contest this territorial trap. Furthermore, using some of the emerging border studies concepts, mainly borderscapes and border poetics, this research will discuss how this particular territory has been recently recovered and recreated. The theoretical underpinnings are followed by an analysis of what the Couto was and how it has been reappropriated in narrative terms in the last twenty years. The paper concludes by discussing the empirical findings on the Couto in light of the theoretical sections. It is eventually suggested that tourism based on specific immaterial border legacy could encourage Couto’s inhabitants and the precarious economy of the area.     

Re-Examining Sovereignty Claims in Changing Territorialities: Reflections from ‘Kosovo Syndrome’

Current legal and normative doctrine forbids de jure recognition to those territorial units whose political leadership has been resisted by metropolitan central authorities. Recognition on the basis of uti possidetis juris makes the self-determination of people a territorial issue. This paper presents a framework for conceptualising and analysing the impact of ‘indivisible sovereignty’ and territoriality dilemmas on self-determination claims, resonating most strongly in the recent Kosovo campaign for independence. It then re-examines seceding motivations and birth-giving processes in Northern Cyprus, Transnistria and Republika Srpska, all which could be defined as self-proclaimed post-conflict entities deemed to gain international recognition. Finally, the paper illustrates the impact of ‘Kosovo syndrome’ on the preservation of status quo while concluding that the immediate reactions to Kosovo independence diverged from case to case to the extent where Turkish Cypriots found new stimulus for reunification, Transnistrians advocated a new model of conflict resolution and Bosnian Serbs increased their bargaining power.     

A Cartography of the Unknowable: Technology,Territory and Subterranean Agencies in Israel’s Management of the Gaza Tunnels

ABSTRACT

This article evaluates the potential for agency exercised by the subterranean volume in geopolitical conflict. Joining recent geographical conceptualisations of territory as a volumetric assemblage with calls for an elemental geopolitics, it argues that the density of the underground layer creates a convoluted techno-political problem that obfuscates the state’s means of directly observing, visualising and knowing the topological space of territory. To illustrate this, a methodological approach based on the relational ontologies of actor-network-theory (ANT) and assemblage theory is applied to an empirical study of the geophysical sensing techniques used by Israeli engineers, scientists and military to manage cross-border tunnels built by the Palestinian militant group Hamas before and after the 2014 Gaza war. The soil conditions, settlement patterns and infrastructures in the Gaza-Western Negev region have necessitated experimentation with complex and multiple forms of scientific and political expertise in attempts to locate the invisible tunnels, alongside a shift towards increasingly oblique techniques of cartographic representation of the sub-surface. The contingency of these efforts has unsettled the State of Israel’s confidence in its ability to manage geopolitical risks through techniques of territorial control. This case raises poignant questions about the extent of the capacities and limitations of technological solutions and geopolitical practices to secure territory when confronted with the geophysical agency of the underground.     

Erasing Tamil Eelam: De/Re Territorialisation in the Global War on Terror

This paper considers the Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam conflict with attention to how its dramatic end can be explained through postcolonial territorial politics. I argue discourses of postcolonial nationalism and global terrorism aligned along domestic, regional, and international political levels to enable a military victory for the government of Sri Lanka. At the domestic political level, there was a change in government along with a split and defection within the LTTE command. At the international level, there was a turn away from Western allies due to their perceived inability to understand the needs of the Asian front in the global war on terror (GWOT). This led to a geopolitical realignment with China, a state sympathetic to fighting terrorism and secession movements. The case is studied under a theoretical lens of “de/re territorialisation” from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. De/re territorialisation reveals simultaneous efforts to inscribe nationalist meaning into territory in a constant process of “becoming.”     

How China Sees the Arctic: Reading Between Extraregional and Intraregional Narratives

In May 2013, China gained observer status in the Arctic Council, exemplifying its growing legitimacy as a regional actor in the eyes of the eight countries with territory north of the Arctic Circle. Yet since China remains an extraregional state without territory in the Arctic, Chinese officials continue to bolster their state’s legitimacy as an Arctic stakeholder through two spatially inconsistent but mutually reinforcing grand regional narratives. On the one hand, Chinese officials recognize the salience of territory and presence in the Arctic, underscoring their country’s “near-Arctic” location and polar scientific expeditions. On the other hand, officials depict the Arctic as a maritime, global space where climate change has potential ramifications for the entire planet. Significantly, these reframings are affecting intraregional states’ perceptions of the Arctic, demonstrating how a region’s territorial extent, symbolic meaning, and institutional form emerge through the ongoing conversation between extraregional and intraregional narratives.     

Politics of Precarious Childhood: Ill Treatment of Palestinian Children under the Israeli Military Order

This paper examines the corollaries of the exceptional treatment of Palestinian children under the Israeli military rule. It is shown how the widespread and systematic ill treatment of Palestinian children accrues from exceptional provisions and lack of legal cover of the Israeli military law. Such lack constitutes a precarious condition under which Palestinian children are not treated as children but as a security threat legally accountable for their acts, in many respects with ways similar to adults. Precarity, the paper argues, is produced through three conditions. First, the lack of protection is institutionalised through the legal, territorial and population-regulating techniques internal to state channels. Second, the lack of protection delegates significant power to the discretion of what Judith Butler calls the ‘petty sovereigns’ – to the soldiers, interrogators, police officers, etc., who are asked to rely on their own judgment when making decisions on the fundamental matters regarding the order and justice, even life and death of children. Third, the use of discretionary power is not only encouraged by the legal system and its exceptions; it also works in tandem with the institutional culture of impunity that accepts the violent disciplining, even torture, of Palestinian children.     

借“五五”普法东风 固风险防范体系——普法与企业经营管理谈

＂五五＂普法即将结束,在＂五五＂普法活动中,结合企业实际,从提高职工法律素质入手,站在依法经营、依法维护企业权益角度,创制了一些适合企业的普法措施和手段,形成了长效的法律宣传机制,建立了法律风险防范体系,形成了鲜明的普法特色,取得了明显的普法效果。摘取制度建设、普法刊物、法律事务联络员、普法与清欠、普法与和谐社区等几个方面进行了具体阐述。     

International Boundaries and Borderlands in the Middle East: Balancing Context,Exceptionalism and Representation

ABSTRACT

Renewed academic interest in the Middle Eastern border is inevitable with the marked increase in fortified territorial limits across the region and the appearance of new borderland spatialities in the sovereign margins of the war-torn Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni states. If the consequent spectacle of displaced populations confronting state power at the international boundary seems a defining image, this article concentrates on two other dominant, less publicised but still relevant border representations from the recent past: territorial definition and its deterministic association with conflict in the northern Gulf and the resource-driven finalisation of the peninsula’s territorial framework. This follows consideration of the significance of the borderland in the region. The author reflects back here on a long record of research into these issues and argues that all of these contexts must be acknowledged in any balanced appraisal of the Middle Eastern border. The article comments on the challenge of extending regional approaches to the study of borders and – on the centenary of the infamous 1916 Sykes-Picot treaty – acknowledges that the Middle East region’s experience of international boundaries continues to be depicted as exceptional. Unsurprisingly, it will conclude that there is no one typical Middle Eastern border.     

Culture,legal heritage and the regulation of labor

According to cross-cultural psychologists, cross-country differences in individualism vs. collectivism constitute an important dimension of cultural variation. Legal-economic theorists argue that legal philosophies such as common law and civil law have developed differently over centuries and have persistent effects. In this paper, we argue that the effects of culture and institutions should not be analyzed in isolation from each other, as this disregards their interactions. We merge the two separate literatures on cultural attributes and legal origin theories, and derive a hypothesis regarding their joint effects on labor market regulations. We hypothesize that the effect of individualism on the political determination of labor regulations should be particularly pronounced in more market-oriented economic systems (as in British common law countries) compared to more rigid and bureaucratic state-centered systems (as in French civil law countries). Market oriented economies give individual effort and ability greater room to flourish, which in individualistic cultures yields weaker labor regulations. The effect of individualism should be smaller in state centered systems. Using data on the average rigidity of labor regulations during the years 1950–2004 in 86 countries, we find that the negative effect of individualism on the rigidity of labor regulations is enhanced by the presence of a common law legal system. In fact, individualism has no effect on the rigidity of labor market regulations in civil law countries. Analogously, the negative effect of common law legal origin on labor market regulations is found to be conditional on the level of individualism. Individualism and common law legal systems are complements in the determination of labor regulations.