Buffer Zones

Abstract

Buffer zones often refers to relatively small states or subnational territories that border more powerful rival powers and that are typically found in intense geopolitical contexts. Yet their origins, conflict-mitigation functions, and security impacts remain less well understood. The existing scholarship in international relations and classic geopolitics tends to treat territoriality as a fixed and given construct. In contrast, critical geopolitics has sought to unbundle territoriality as a flexible, politically constructed entity and to move away from geographic determinism. Thus, buffers can be understood through a dynamic analytic framework that provides useful guidance for assessing the territorial politics of states in competitive geopolitical settings. To this end, different types of buffer zones—unilateral, dyadic, nominal, and three types of active buffer zones (zone of management, neglect, and constatation)—can be conceptualized at the subnational and state levels based on the mode and intensity of rivalry involvement. Each type exhibits distinctive political and security externalities. Active buffer zone types tend to stabilize regional rivalries compared with unilateral and nominal buffer zones; however, they generally produce negative security externalities for polities and communities within the territory. In nominal and unilateral buffer zones, polities suffer from institutional weakness and breakdown. In contested buffer zones, the positive effect of regional stability is often offset by domestic instability induced by polarization and fragmentation. The agency of buffers is often overlooked and deserves much more attention, particularly in exploring a potential endogenous process of buffer formation.