What is it about?
There have been over 150 border changes since the end of the First World War and that’s only a fraction of history. Watching videos of European border changes since early-Roman times dazzles the eyes, and with India too. Each border change has its own history going back decades and even centuries. Different peoples have been involved speaking their different languages, having their different religions, different DNAs, different standards of living, facing different foes and, if they were lucky, enjoying their different friends. Sometimes border changes resulted from civil war and sometimes from treaty settlements after international wars. Sometimes civil wars ended with a nation not splitting apart. Sometimes a third country came to the aid of a disadvantaged people, but often not. Sometimes a third country came to the aid of an advantaged people to make sure that the disadvantaged people remained disadvantaged. Sometimes peacekeepers stepped in but usually not. And just sometimes tranquility reigned and no conflicts happened at all. Sometimes separate countries volunteered to join together as one, and sometimes a single country chose to split itself apart. Sometimes a country facing secessionists tried to buy them off with extra money or allowed them autonomous government. But sometimes, instead, they sent in troops and many died. All these different strands of history have been written about, filling many bookshelves, and the reading of it is very interesting. What is different about this short thesis is that it offers a general framework that applies to all cases, or, perhaps, only to most cases. Time will tell of course. The model developed is an economic model in which the leaderships of two sides are either pitched against each other, or, else they work with each other with no malice to find answers to the questions of why will borders change, why will new countries be created, why will Empires grow, and why will Empires fade? Discussed are two historically relatively stable situations – those of ‘empire’ where an entrapped people can’t leave even if they wanted to, and of tranquility where any sub-nation has the freedom to move on but chooses not to. And there are two transitional phases, one of war and one of non-resisted secession. Altogether twelve historical sequences will be discussed. The economic modeling approach used is that of standard economics, the neoclassical approach, in which individuals attempt to maximize their own welfare - as they define their own welfare, but subject to whatever constraints they may face. The constraint may be an opposing belligerent force, but it could also be that a sub-nation of people decide they can’t be any better than with the tranquility they now enjoy.
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Why is it important?
An important contribution of this book is to inform empirical research on the cause or absence of wars of secession. Such empirical research as has been conducted does not take account of all the 'causal' variables and their interactions identified in this thesis. As a result, empirical findings published in some leading journals have been questioned.
Perspectives
This thesis began with my work, published in two short books, on the financing of Scottish government in the situation of the rising popularity of Scottish nationalism. These were followed by papers on the American civil war - a war of secession, and one on the importance of international peacekeeping as a means of quelling civil wars. Thinking about these three historical situations led me to write a general model of the causes of conflict and of peace. The result is this book.
Paul Hallwood
University of Connecticut
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Interpreting Historical Sequences Using Economic Models, January 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-53854-5.
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