What makes territory important: tangible and intangible dimensions |
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Authors: | Daniel J Dzurek |
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Institution: | (1) International Boundary Consultants, 3601 Wisconsin Avenue, NW Suite 409, Washington, DC 20016, USA |
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Abstract: | Conflicts over territory have resulted in innumerable wars and other violent incidents, but the reasons that some territory
is more highly valued or volatile than other areas may not be obvious. This paper demonstrates a taxonomy for analyzing international
territorial disputes that seeks to capture their tangible and symbolic dimensions and to weigh them as the international community
might. Twenty-six territorial disputes, including offshore areas and separatist issues, were examined and scored according
to 15 criteria for objective prominence and 7 criteria related to how a country might view the dispute in terms of its national
interest. The taxonomy used Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy Process to identify tangible and intangible properties, measure their
interrelations, and produce intermediate and overall ranks. Each dispute was evaluated for prominence by examining intensifying
(symbolic) factors, measures of magnitude, and characteristics that retard resolution. The magnitude of a dispute was judged
to contribute the most to overall prominence, having twice the weight of the other two factors. The top five disputes in terms
of prominence were the Kurdish issue, Kashmir, Tibet, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Xinjiang. The second hierarchy evaluated the disputes
from the perspective of an international actor, in this case the United States. When judged by U.S. national interest, the
most important factors were the deployment of U.S. forces in the claimant countries and if one of the claimants were a U.S.
ally. Finally, the results from the two hierarchies were compared. |
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Keywords: | Analytic Hierarchy Process boundary dispute sovereignty taxonomy territory |
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