(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
involve geographical considerations, with resulting
actions and processes having sometimes profound,
sometimes subtle geographical impact.
For those who belong to and control a territory, there
will undoubtedly be powerful symbolic links to
“their” territory, no matter how little the territory is
actually known or how weakly it is perceived; it is
enough that it is theirs! But what if the territory in
question does not coincide with the bounds of a partic-
ular State, either in terms of its intemal or inter-State
structures? Where there is a distributional disparity,
there is the potential for conflict.
The Inherent Contradictions of Territory
The attachments people have to their territory can
have spiritual and psychological bases that go deeper
than anything generated simply by economic factors.
These attachments and linkages help to bond people
both to their territory and to others who also “belong”
to it and accept it as theirs.
Territory, according to the French geographer Jean
Gottmann (1973), when delimited with a system of
government that has effective control over it, provides
both security and opportunity for those who live
within its bounds. On the one hand, there is security to
be gained from being an isolated community, whereas,
on the other hand, there is opportunity to be derived
from being a part of a larger whole. Inwardness and
security, outwardness and opportunity—stress is
caused by these contradictory dimensions of territory,
for elements of both undoubtedly are always present
in any situation. In terms of foreign policy and inter-
national trade and other linkages, States may be fur-
ther along the continuum toward one extreme or the
other at different times, thus more toward stressing an
outward-looking opportunity perspective than an
inward-looking security perspective at one time, and
vice versa at another. That there is an interplay
between the two contrasting, fundamental dimensions
of territory is vital to any understanding of the politi-
cal geography of specific States, the international sys-
tem of States, and the various group politico-territorial
identities around the globe that are challenging the
status quo.
Territorial Processes
For any State to exist there must be numerous “cen-
tiipetal forces” operating that link people, places, and
socioeconomic and political processes (Whebell 1983;
table 1). A key process is centralization, whereby the
people and their territory are “welded” together via
socioeconomic and political integration. Centraliza-
tion processes vary, and the degrees of success in
achieving unification, if'such is the goal, also vary. It
has been almost an article of faith that by the modern-
ization of all within the State’s bounds a unified devel-
oped State can be achieved, with the center--be it
political or economic——providing supposed solutions
to the development needs of periphery. The efforts of
the 1950s and 1960s, in many States, did not achieve
such a goal. Still, even when unity eluded States,
modemization processes generally linked people and
regions together. Core—periphery relations have inter-
nal and international dimensions for all States (Gott-
mann, ed., l980). They operate in colonial situations
too, as when the center establishes and then strength-
ens its links to the colonial periphery center.
States also constantly have to deal with various decen-
tralizing processes. Whereas various centripetal forces
strengthen and unify the State, countervailing, centrif-
ugal forces reduce its cohesion. A weak central gov-
ernment; poor communications; or significant ethnic,
cultural, religious, or other divisions among people
within the State serve as examples of centrifugal
forces. If the divide is too great between a regionally
based group and the central government, self-determi-
nation and secession may be demanded. To deal with
demands from a peripheral portion of the State, the
government may grant devolution whereby legislative
power is devolved from the center to a region—such
as what Scots nationalists want from the English-dom-
inated parliamentary center in London or when a new
sub-State territory is created as in Jura in Switzerland
(Jenkins, 1986). If centrifugal forces prove to be too
destructive within a State, a people may demand inter-
nal self-determination by throwing out a government
and reforming the State, as happended early in the
1990s in Poland and Hungary when Communist gov-
emments and their apparatuses were overthrown and
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268