Overview of Project:
Deeply entrenched international norms proscribe changing borders by force and extend sympathy for minority self-determination claims at the same time that they impose significant material, strategic, and reputational costs on violations. I ask why, in the face of these obvious costs, some states persist in making irredentist claims. Focusing on territorial claims that emphasize historic attachments, I explore how such claims are constructed, how their pursuit affects conflict resolution, and especially, how and why they seem to suddenly appear or undergo transformation.
I compare three states where policymakers have asserted such claims: Israel, Serbia, and Armenia and explore variations in each: primarily Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza in Israel; Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro with respect to Serbia; and Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan for Armenia. Making use of archival materials, news media, and interviews, I explore how collective historical narratives of territorial entitlement in combination with self-determination claims constitute domestic perceptions of appropriate national space and are expressed through domestic political process. This work contributes to the comparative politics and international relations literatures on state development, nationalism, and sovereign territoriality.
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