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ABSTRACT.Outlining Ireland's long history of ethno‐national conflict, and the recent protracted 'peace process' in Northern Ireland, contextualises a critique of the problems underlying such conflicts, and the difficulties in transforming externally imposed conflict management into self‐sustaining conflict resolution. It is argued that the problems and difficulties are deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty and representative democracy. These are knotted together in a common denominator of territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the 'double paradox' of democracy'sundemocratic origins in the present. Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of social organisation which simplifies social control. But it can grosslyoversimplify and distort social realities, particularly at borders and especially where territory is contested, thereby reinforcing other distorting simplifications typically found in ethno‐national conflicts. In consequence, radical remedies are needed if the problems are to be overcome. Making ethno‐national peace paradoxically calls for more creative border‐crossing conflicts around other issues.

11 September (2001) heralded & provided a pretext for a more aggressive but increasingly contradictory American hegemony. Some of the consequences are contrary to the US's own interests. Its new doctrine of 'pre-emptive strike' against other sovereign states encourages similarly belligerent behavior by other governments, & yet more terrorism by nonstate actors, the very threats to be eradicated by a reasserted US hegemony. This essay focuses on three partly overlapping themes: different strategies toward allies -- multilateral & unilateral; different forms of power -- civil & military; & different ideologies of globalization -- neoliberal & neoconservative. It argues that while US policy may oscillate between such poles, it often combines the different elements. The overall strategy of the Bush administration is best characterized as unilateral multilateralism. The main issue for US hegemonists is the ways in which their hegemony might best be exercised, maintained & strengthened vis-a-vis allies & rivals. But for a safer, more democratic world, the choice does not lie between one faction of US hegemonists & another: we need other alternatives such as cosmopolitan democracy & a genuine internationalist movement, which would give it some much-needed substance. Adapted from the source document.

Explores their changing historical significance and economic basis in the European Union; topics include improving communications between French and English emergency services across the English Channel, English and continental European police cooperation, the German-Polish border, and border issues in the Baltic Sea and Upper Adriatic regions; 9 articles. Based on papers presented at the international conference "European cross-border co-operation: lessons for and from Ireland", held at Queens University, Belfast, Sept.-Oct. 2000. Contents: Why study borders now? by James Anderson, Liam O'Dowd and Thomas M. Wilson; The changing significance of European borders, by Liam O'Dowd; Borders of comfort: spatial economic bordering processes in the European Union, by Henk van Houtum; Cross-border environmental governance and EC law, by Richard Macrory and Sharon Turner; Talking across frontiers: building communication between emergency services, by Edward Johnson; Cross-border police cooperation: the Kent experience, by Frank Gallagher; Cross-border governance in the Baltic Sea region, by James Scott; The Euroregion and the maximization of social capital: pro-Europa Viadrina, by Jonathan Grix and Vanda Knowles; Cross-border cooperation in the Upper Adriatic, by Milan Bufon.