Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization

Predictions that globalization would undermine territorial attachments and weaken the sources of territorial conflict have not been realized in recent decades. Globalization may have produced changes in territoriality and the functions of borders, but it has not eliminated them. The contributors to this volume examine this relationship, arguing that much of the change can be attributed to sources other than economic globalization. Bringing the perspectives of law, political science, anthropology, and geography to bear on the complex causal relations among territoriality, conflict, and globalization, leading contributors examine how territorial attachments are constructed, why they have remained so powerful in the face of an increasingly globalized world, and what effect continuing strong attachments may have on conflict. They argue that territorial attachments and people's willingness to fight for territory depends upon the symbolic role it plays in constituting people's identities, and producing a sense of belonging in an increasingly globalized world.

'The book provides interesting new theoretical insights, drawing especially on rational choice approaches that have become so prominent in the study of international relations...the book is a very useful corrective to the earlier widespread but now implausible belief that globalization would quickly lead to the erasure of borders, territoriality, and conflict." -Tony Porter, McMaster University, Canadian Journal of Political Science

Miles Kahler is Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. Publications include International Institutions and the Political Economy of Integration, Governance in a Global Economy (co-edited with David Lake, Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals, Legalization and World Politics (co-editor) and Capital Flows and Financial Crises (editor). Barbara F. Walter is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Committing to Peace: the Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (2002) and co-editor, with Jack Snyder of Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (1999).