The Frontier Zone

Abstract

A model is postulated for the total transactional flows, legal and illegal, in international borderlands (boundaries with flanking frontier zones), with particular relevance to the perceptions, needs, and problems of dwellers in the frontier zones. The modeling of periphery-to-periphery interaction, both positive and negative, complements the core- periphery model. Distortions on the developmental surface in borderlands, introduced by stimulation, osmosis, or interdiction introduced unilaterally by national policies, disturb the structured field of political forces, with both national and international implications. As social and economic gradients between states change, the short-term impact is often most violent in the frontier zones.