Transforming Ethnic Frontiers of Conflict into Political Frontiers of Peace

This chapter addresses the transitional nature of boundaries and their associated frontier regions. It discusses the extent to which changes in the system of political relationships between neighboring states are, in turn, reflected in changing patterns of development within the frontier regions. Political frontiers are formed around and along inter-state boundaries, the latter directly affecting patterns of development taking place in the former. Government policy towards a conflictual frontier may take two different approaches, largely depending on the perceived role of the frontier in the eyes of the policy makers. Three factors are considered crucial to the transformation process: the nature of military presence in and around the political frontier; patterns of cross-frontier geo-ethnicity; and, the extent of cross-boundary economic cooperation. The political and the socioeconomic are closely linked in a mutually enforcing process, bringing about the transformation of a peripheral and/or frontier region from conditions of marginality to conditions of development and even economic boom.