Political Borders, Domestic Politics and Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation

Borders are ubiquitous in politics and economics. International borders are what make relations among states international, while sub-state administrative borders are increasingly recognized as central to understanding many aspects of domestic politics. For instance, the status and key characteristics of borders are known to have significant effect on the likelihood and character of militarized conflict among states, the volume of international trade and foreign direct investment, and the propensity for civil conflicts to become "transnational". Furthermore, "informal" political borders, such as states' internal ethnic divisions, have also been found to profoundly influence economic patterns, patterns of political competition, as well as the propensity for states to experience political violence and civil conflict. Despite the ubiquity of borders and their widely recognized importance to politics, there has traditionally been little research directly addressing how and why they shape individual level behavior. Recently, this has changed, as scholars across several literatures in the subfields of international relations, comparative politics and political economy have begun to put greater theoretical and empirical focus on borders and their role in organizing the political and economic behavior of individuals and governments. This course provides a survey of the role of borders in political and economics, drawing from a diverse set of contemporary literatures in political science and economics.
Course Attributes:

Political Borders, Domestic Politics and Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation

POLITICAL SCIENCE 5056

Section 01