TY - JOUR
AU1 - Branch,, Jordan
AB - Abstract This article examines the central, though understudied, role that a rapidly changing technology—mapping—plays in territorial conflict. As digital cartographic tools replace traditional paper maps, both the processes and outcomes of negotiation over territory change fundamentally. Digitization does not simply produce “better” maps that make settlements easier to reach. Instead, particular features of digital mapping reshape disputes over territory by altering the evaluation of possible solutions, changing the perceived value of territories, and bringing new actors into negotiation processes. Those effects are complex and context-sensitive. They promote conflict resolution in some circumstances but pose new obstacles to settlements in others. This article combines theory on mapping, negotiation, bargaining, and emotions in international relations. I first develop a set of general implications of digital mapping for the processes and outcomes of territorial negotiation. I then examine three illustrative cases: the 1995 Dayton Accords, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, and the 2010 border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In each case, new features of digital mapping yielded unexpected effects on negotiation and dispute-resolution processes. In November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, the US government brought together the hostile parties involved in the Bosnian civil war in an attempt to broker a stable peace—a peace that would include the division of Bosnia into two autonomous territories. One particularly contentious issue: the creation of a territorial corridor connecting the Muslim enclave of Gorazde to the rest of the Muslim-Croat Federation. The US delegation knew that they needed a proposal that Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic would accept. As Ambassador Richard Holbrooke (1998, 283) later wrote, “[U.S. General Wesley] Clark and his colleagues had prepared well for the meeting. Flying the land between Sarajevo and Gorazde endlessly…they had found a route that could link the two cities.” Although reconnaissance often precedes negotiations, this was different. Clark did not actually travel over Bosnia in an aircraft. Instead he was “flying” through a digital representation of the territory using a US military virtual terrain system brought to Dayton to facilitate the talks. According to Holbrooke and others, this virtual reconnaissance helped convince Milosevic to support a settlement. The negotiations at Dayton offer one of the first instances of digital mapping tools being used to settle a conflict involving territory.1 Something was fundamentally different about Clark manipulating a computer system to prepare a boundary proposal and to convince Milosevic—different, that is, from using paper maps in traditional diplomacy. This article explores that difference in order to better understand the prospects for the peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts in a world of rapidly evolving technologies. Specifically, I consider how the processes and outcomes of territorial negotiation change when digital cartography supplants paper maps.2 Although prior studies investigate some of the effects of digital mapping, few examine its role in negotiating resolutions to territorial conflicts. The few analyses that exist, moreover, rely on a conventional interpretation of technological change—as the creation of new means for the pursuit of existing goals. International affairs analysts often describe digital maps as better cartographic tools for diplomacy. That is, many assume that they make conflicts easier to resolve. This article instead builds on an array of existing research—on mapping technology, spatial politics, negotiation and bargaining theory, and the role of emotion in international relations—to explore exactly how the particular features of digital mapping reshape specific processes of negotiation over territory. Digital mapping provides tools that, while developing out of paper maps, present new capabilities, features, and representations: layering of different information, greater flexibility of content and image, increased accuracy and certainty, and the realism of photographic imagery and three-dimensional modeling. Digitization has also revolutionized who is able to create, distribute, and use maps. In fact, the most advanced technologies used at Dayton were superseded within a decade by free, publicly available systems like Google Earth (Sheppard and Cizek 2009). These novel spatial representations and map production capabilities transform territorial negotiation in particular ways. The effects are context-sensitive, so a feature that makes it easier to reach an agreement in one setting can have the opposite effect in another. We thus need to focus on the impact on negotiation processes themselves, and not just outcomes. In short, new tools change the types of settlements available, alter the evaluation of outcomes, change the perceived value of particular territories, and bring new actors into the negotiating process. This article thus considers the important issue of territorial conflict from a new angle. The first section surveys the features of digital mapping and synthesizes existing theory to explore the impact on territorial negotiation. The next sections examine the Dayton negotiations and two more recent cases, each illustrating particular dynamics. The conclusion suggests implications for policy and for scholarship regarding the broader intersection between technological change and international relations. The Digitization of Mapping and Territorial Negotiation A few recent studies briefly examine the effect of mapping on territorial negotiations. They all follow a consistent line of argument: digital mapping systems are faster, more accurate, and more detailed than paper maps; they therefore make it easier for negotiators to reach settlements (e.g., Wood 2000; Johnson 1999).3 This accurately describes some of the effects of digital mapping—particularly on specific conflicts. But it misses other, more complex interactions among new tools, contextual factors, and the processes involved in negotiation. This section develops a theoretical framework for making sense of these interactions. It does so by drawing on arguments and concepts from political geography, science and technology studies, negotiation and bargaining theory, and political psychology. Mapping Technologies and International Politics: A Theoretical Framework In territorial negotiations, technological tools and other contextual factors structure the types of solutions available, the ways that outcomes are evaluated, and interaction practices and norms. Technologies transform the process of negotiation—not just the probability of reaching an agreement. This section explores how technologies relate to negotiating and bargaining processes, to the evaluation of losses or gains, and to the role of emotions and affect in decision-making. Research in science and technology studies (STS) highlights how technologies constitute and are embedded in political relations, interests, and identities, with neither social nor technological factors being entirely determinative.4 In fact, technology itself is political: “technology in a true sense is legislation,” shaping “the basic pattern and content of human activity in our time” (Winner 1977, 323).5 International relations scholarship occasionally engages with STS, including in recent work theorizing technological systems as both cause and effect (Herrera 2006; Fritsch 2011; Mayer, Carpes, and Knoblich 2014; Carr 2016). Technologies are not so malleable and socially constructed that their material features have no effect whatsoever, nor are they inflexible constraints on political action that directly determine outcomes. Instead, the structuring effects of technologies—of particular capabilities or features—have a foreseeable impact on the possible range of political ideas, interactions, and choices. Technological systems function like political institutions: although designed and applied for particular ends, they later shape the conditions of action in unanticipated ways (Fioretos 2011). How does this view of technology apply to mapping? Historians and political geographers have shown that cartography is, and always has been, embedded in political and social relationships of power (e.g., Crampton 2010; Harley 2001; Pickles 2004; Wood 2010). Maps are more than communication devices, transferring information from a mapmaker to a map user. Instead, mapping is a representational technology that embodies mapmakers’ worldviews and that can reshape map users’ ideas.6 Like paper maps, digital mapping encompasses a wide range of actors and interests and should thus be understood as a set of technologies and practices that are deeply embedded in social and political relations (Crampton 2001, 246–49; Kitchin, Gleeson, and Dodge 2012, 494–95). The characteristics, prevalence, and uses of mapping have changed dramatically over time. New tools structure political interactions—including negotiations over territory—and, simultaneously, political ideas and interests alter the demand for maps and the characteristics of those maps. Early modern Europe saw one such transformation, a “cartographic revolution” that reshaped political ideas and practices. Maps thus played a central role in the emergence of the territorial state as a political-spatial ideal (Biggs 1999; Strandsbjerg 2008; Branch 2014, 3–9; Leslie 2016). Territory as a form of political authority and control is historically recent. It emerged out of early-modern ideas and practices, consolidating only in the nineteenth century.7 Though not the only relevant factor, mapping gave statehood its particularly territorial character: it constituted the state as a discrete spatial entity, defined by clearly demarcated boundaries and claiming exclusive rights within those lines. The relationship between mapping and politics also appears in negotiations over territory. Historical cases reveal that different technologies yielded different processes of negotiation and different outcomes. New tools gave rulers not only new capabilities in terms of the claims they could make but also new ideas about what types of claims they should make. For example, the shift from medieval political authority defined by personal bonds or feudal jurisdictions to the modern emphasis on clearly demarcated linear boundaries came about only after mapping had emerged as the dominant means of representing and interacting with political spaces; lines on maps became lines on the ground. (See the Supplementary Material, available online, for a detailed discussion of the historically evolving relationship between cartographic technologies—or their absence—and political negotiation.) Today, mapping continues to shape the conditions of possibility for how negotiations proceed and, in some circumstances, for their outcomes. In the following paragraphs—which draw on studies of negotiation as well as concepts and arguments from related areas—I do not propose to reinvent the study of international negotiations. Instead, I add to that study by exploring how mapping technologies reshape specific negotiation processes. Of course, potential obstacles to conflict resolution unrelated to technological factors exist. These include strategic barriers to cooperation, incentives to keep information private, and political interests in prolonging the conflict (Ross and Stillinger 1991, 391). Nonetheless, in negotiations over territory, new mapping technologies can reshape processes and outcomes. The important outcomes of international negotiation include not only whether an agreement is reached but also the likely stability of that agreement and the efficiency of the distribution of benefits (Hopmann 1996, 28–30).8 In addition, the process itself is consequential: “A given set of initial conditions will not regularly produce the same outcome, so that outcomes are affected not only by initial conditions but also by the process variables that intervene” (Hopmann 2002, 69). Technological systems constitute an integral element in negotiation processes, from the formation of interests and demands to the evaluation of proposals to the implementation of settlements. For example, one approach to studying negotiations considers them as cases of bargaining between self-interested actors (Hopmann 1995, 25–26). This bargaining approach highlights the role of information: incomplete information may make a successful bargain harder to reach, and uncertainty about information can influence strategies and outcomes (e.g., Fearon 1995, 390–95; Powell 2002, 23–6). That information, however, exists only within the technologies used to record, store, manipulate, and distribute it. Thus changes to those technical systems potentially reshape the information presented and its impact. Negotiators have three implicit options: take a deal offered, stop negotiating and walk away, or engage in further bargaining (Iklé 1964, 59–60). Evaluating those options is fundamental to the process of negotiation. Decision-makers sometimes reach “distorted,” or not strictly rational, judgments by overvaluing concessions that were difficult to achieve, evaluating outcomes relative to a particular reference point, or overemphasizing an intuitively more acceptable division like an even split (Iklé 1964, 167–72). Studies in political psychology further specify these types of processes. According to prospect theory, for example, decisions are framed in terms of an initial reference point and not in terms of a final position.9 Decision-makers then give losses more weight than equivalent gains, leading to loss aversion, that is, the tendency to overvalue what one possesses but might lose, including territorial holdings. Yet the idea of what territory counts as a loss versus what counts as a gain depends on how territory is operationalized, in terms of material control as well as depictions in maps and other technological tools. As a related issue, concession aversion holds that each party overvalues its own concessions above those offered by the other side—a product of loss aversion as well as the “reactive devaluation” of another's offer (McDermott 2004, 140). In territorial negotiations, the types of concessions offered depend on how those concessions can be represented, a process that occurs only through some medium, whether it be verbal, written, or through the visual representation of a map. Research on emotions in international relations suggests additional ways in which technological tools reshape negotiation processes.10 Emotions are integral to all decision-making processes, not only deviations from rationality (Mercer 2010, 2). They may be particularly relevant to face-to-face interactions like negotiations (Holmes 2013; Holmes and Yarhi-Milo 2017). For example, affect—defined as “the positive and negative feelings evoked by a stimulus” or the “general valence feelings toward something”—shapes decision-making. “Instead of appraising objects, events, or people by cognitive analysis, we simply feel what these objects, events, or people mean to us and respond accordingly” (Sasley 2010, 689, 690). The relevant affective reaction may be a response to the bargain being considered, the territory being disputed, or even the technological tools being used. For example, in “mood-congruent processing,” decision-makers privilege information that fits an emotional state in judgments of reliability or certainty because “vivid and emotionally compelling facts and information hold greater impact” (McDermott 2004, 64; see also Mercer 2010, 8–10). In terms of disputes over territory, different areas—strategic places versus homelands, for example—will have different degrees of affective attachment (Walter 2003), with decisions or judgments then shaped by that affect. Finally, actors may have an affective reaction to the tools brought to the negotiations, which could alter how information provided by those tools is evaluated or recalled.11 These findings and concepts, when applied to the intersection of technology and negotiation, can be synthesized productively. Existing studies of diplomacy often treat technology as a background factor or “contingent variable,” without an explicit consideration of technology's mediating effects (e.g., Barston 2013, chapter 4). Most scholarship that focuses directly on technology and diplomacy falls into one of two categories: studies of social media as a form of “digital diplomacy” (e.g., Bjola and Holmes 2015) or studies of new communication technologies potentially replacing face-to-face interactions (e.g., Purdy, Nye, and Balakrishnan 2000). Both approaches build on historical studies that examine the impact on diplomacy of technologies like telegraph and radio (Headrick 1991). They find, ironically, that new technologies have not significantly reduced face-to-face negotiation (Holmes 2015, 13). Instead of examining the substitution of technology for face-to-face interaction, this article instead asks how technological changes transform the tools that negotiators use at face-to-face meetings. Although diplomacy has not embraced communication technologies as a replacement for direct interaction, the new tools brought to support, mediate, and shape negotiations are nonetheless consequential. The limited existing examination from this angle emphasizes the much greater availability of information to diplomats, as well as their ability to communicate quickly (e.g., Pigman 2010, 109–20). Focusing on these features, analysts tend to portray new technologies as an unalloyed good. For example, technological change has historically “made negotiation a more efficient and cost-effective tool” (Cohen and Meerts 2008, 153). By taking a more skeptical approach, this article asks if new technologies reshape the complex processes and outcomes of face-to-face interaction in unexpected ways. Studies of negotiation, bargaining, political psychology, and emotions reveal important processes that interact with conditions of possibility created by technological systems. Ignoring this mediating effect of technology leaves our explanations for the course and outcomes of international negotiations incomplete. As new technologies are increasingly widespread, studying these effects will become all the more important. Digital Mapping: Implications for Negotiation Although countless differences exist between digital and paper mapping tools, a few broad transformations—evident in publicly available technologies12—are particularly relevant to territorial negotiations. These include features of the mapping tools themselves and changes to the broader context of cartography. Each has implications for how territory is depicted, claimed, and contested in negotiations—implications beyond the conventional view that faster and more accurate tools make negotiating goals easier to achieve. First, digital tools can show multiple layers of spatial information much more easily than can paper maps (which can include layers only up to a certain point while still maintaining readability). Layering has always been a strength of GIS, and it is also integral to user modifications of online maps such as Google Earth (Miller 2006, 191–93; Crampton 2010, chapter 3). Digital tools also make it easy for readers to choose which layers to display. When it comes to territorial negotiations, layering simplifies the depiction of more complex types of territorial divisions, including distinct authority claims over different aspects of the territory (resources, settlements, or airspace, for example). Digital tools also make it easier to show a gradual transition—rather than a line—between two claims. With complex depictions more readily accessible, negotiators can more easily discuss different forms of territorial division and can even find them more acceptable.13 Layering can also have an impact on the way in which individuals evaluate options in terms of reference or anchor points. Especially for claims made through maps, showing more options simultaneously can alter the strength of the anchoring effect and the resulting aversion to losses. Moreover, one proposed remedy for the challenge posed by concession aversion is to offer a “menu” of concessions, giving the other party more choice in the result and thus overcoming the tendency to devalue particular proposals (Ross and Stillinger 1991, 398). Layering makes it much easier to manipulate and offer a menu of territorial options. Yet layering can also complicate negotiations by making it harder to find focal points that coordinate expectations and anchor commitments to particular places or territories (Iklé 1964, 213). As Schelling (1960, 54–55) demonstrated in an exercise in which two people were given the same simple map and asked where they would expect to meet, unique features on maps provide focal points. With the proliferation of information in a multilayered digital map, it becomes harder to find an obvious point for coordination. In territorial negotiations, this can prevent the two sides from coming to the table with the same proposal, even if they have generally similar ideas about the outcome. A second feature of digital mapping is greater flexibility in both content and display. Of course, users have always altered maps—marking them with a pen or pencil—and producers have updated and printed in new editions. Many digital maps, however, incorporate the ability to edit content—within limits set by the code—as a fundamental feature. Unlike pencil marks on a paper map, changes will often appear indistinguishable from the original information. Territorial claims can thus be altered quickly. This increased speed, highlighted by advocates, may sometimes make it easier to achieve a resolution in less time. Yet digital flexibility can also affect participants’ assumptions about the permanence of lines on maps. Typically, mapping a disputed boundary tends to make the conflict more intractable, deepening functional and symbolic entrenchment (Hassner 2006/2007, 125). The flexibility of digital mapping, however, allows for quickly changing depictions that do not become as politically fixed over time. And more complex effects might also appear, depending on the particular context. Shorter turnaround times between offers can make an impatient actor (one willing to accept the current proposal rather than bargain further) effectively more patient and thus more intransigent. This deadline effect is simultaneously objective and perceptual (Pinfari 2013, 5). Time pressure potentially changes when negotiators feel that the new technology allows them to exchange proposals rapidly. Digital mapping also alters the precision and certainty of information—and the perceptions of them. First, accurate position-finding is much easier, thanks to ubiquitous Global Position System (GPS) devices. Second, digital mapping vastly improves the ability to perform spatial calculations, making existing ones like surface area faster and enabling complex computations that otherwise would be practically impossible. Rapid and accurate calculation can provide benefits for territorial negotiation. Principals often want to exchange territories of equal areas, and now digital mapping systems make measuring the results of new boundary lines much easier. Instead of waiting for calculations made by hand, negotiators receive immediate results, thus speeding up the process and removing possible sources of friction. When decision-makers are sensitive to losses, however, increased accuracy can also make compromises harder to reach. Many historical negotiations relied on ambiguity to reach acceptable agreements (for example, by allowing boundary commissions to work out significant details later). Ambiguity enables each side to feel that it has suffered fewer losses than its adversary and thus has gotten the better deal.14 With the precision of digital mapping, this strategy is no longer available. Of course, the utility of ambiguity depends on context: sometimes negotiators favor exact delimitation for reasons unrelated to the ease of calculation. Yet when negotiators internalize the expectation that mapping tools will be exact, ambiguity becomes increasingly unacceptable. The most visually arresting new feature of digital mapping is the use of satellite imagery and three-dimensional terrain models. This feature presents an image quite different from that of traditional maps. Users perceive information to be more accurate because of its photographic basis and more “realistic” feel. The power of mapping comes in part from the “you are here” effect of experiencing maps as windows into the real world (Leslie 2016, 173). This effect grows even more pronounced with realistic imagery, which blurs the line between being in a space and observing a representation of that space (Lindsay 2010, 647). The perception of realism, however, is problematic. For example, virtual terrain models often exaggerate elevation change for visual emphasis, and satellite layers on mapping systems comprise complex mosaics of multiple images. Raw satellite imagery, moreover, requires significant interpretation to adjust for weather, time-of-day lighting, and other factors. Yet users express a preference for satellite imagery over traditional mapping, even though they actually complete map-reading tasks more efficiently without satellite imagery (Hegarty, Smallman, Stull, and Canham 2009, 182). Nonetheless, the perception that satellite imagery and three-dimensional modeling are “more real” has consequences. For example, such a perception can make the image feel “experiential” rather than abstract and the resulting analysis more “value-laden” than calculative (Perkins and Dodge 2009, 557–58; Sheppard and Cizek 2009, 2104). For territorial negotiations, photographic imagery and virtual models can expand the range of possible settlements. Negotiations can address three-dimensional spaces, and nontraditional solutions become more imaginable—and thus potentially more acceptable—when negotiators have tools capable of depicting them. The feeling of experiencing a space can give greater weight to the information presented, potentially increasing the plausibility of a solution. This experiential character also reinforces the impact of emotion or affect. Three-dimensional visualizations “stimulate positive or negative emotional reactions in observers” (Sheppard, Shaw, Flanders, and Burch 2008, 4). A negotiator's affective response toward a specific territory can thus change, altering the emotional reaction to particular gains or losses. Because the imagery could elicit a positive or negative affect, however, the potential impact on negotiation outcomes remains ambiguous. Depending on the context, one side could become either more intransigent regarding a particular territorial concession or more willing to see the other side's claim in a positive light. Moving from the features of digital mapping to its broader context, a shift has occurred in who creates, distributes, and uses mapping. This includes not only “democratizing” trends such as the wider public availability of mapping capabilities (e.g., Goodchild 2007; Haklay 2013) but also a shift in the identity of the dominant mapping institutions—the rise of Google, for example (Leszczynski 2012, 80–83). Moreover, while many governments have long had access to satellite imagery, it has recently been made widely available to the public through digital mapping systems. Free “virtual globes” like Google Earth now integrate three-dimensional modeling of terrain and even buildings. Nongovernmental organizations use satellite imagery to monitor and expose human rights abuses, creating the possibility of new forms of “digitally enabled collective action” (Livingston 2015, 5). These capabilities have empowered nonstate actors to challenge states’ “monopoly on the synoptic view of earth from space” (Livingston 2015, 25). These trends specific to mapping build on the growing importance of “digital diplomacy”—the requirement that states address a broader audience, and use social media and other new tools, in order to support traditional diplomatic goals (e.g., Dizard 2001; Bjola and Holmes 2015). In territorial negotiations, the wider availability of mapping makes a broader public capable of measuring and calculating gains and losses. “With the increased availability of both high-resolution commercial imagery and internationally recognized treaties…[m]illions of people can now apply a new level of scrutiny to borders” (Kaye n.d., 8–9). Since leaders’ legitimacy often relies on territorial claims (Goddard 2010, chapter 2), more information in public hands can make losses harder to accept. This leads to a tension between the likelihood of reaching a solution and the stability of that solution. Wider participation can make it harder to find a bargain acceptable to leaders on both sides, but, once reached, that agreement may reflect more of the interests of the relevant publics and thus potentially be more stable. In short, the wider distribution of mapping capabilities reshapes the role of domestic political pressures in negotiations. In another change in the context of mapping, new tools and practices increasingly blur the line between official government cartography and the activities of corporations or private individuals. Although many governments have struggled to control the publicly available satellite imagery in tools such as Google Earth (Kumar 2010, 159–65), these relationships have also involved cooperation. Private companies, for example, have removed images of sensitive locations and have often reserved the highest-resolution imagery for military clients (Perkins and Dodge 2009, 556). Google Earth itself has had customers in government agencies, and the US military originally developed the publicly available GPS system (Leszczynski 2012, 79, 82; Dalton 2013, 265). Although mapping has always brought together governmental and nongovernmental institutions, the complexity of the ties between official and unofficial cartography has reached a point where tools created by nonstate entities sometimes shape the interactions of state actors. If nongovernmental mapping providers determine what maps depict and how they can or cannot be altered, then a significant piece of the framework for negotiation has moved outside of the direct control of negotiating parties or mediators. This could be a boon to negotiation, especially in situations with limited or unreliable official cartographic resources. “Commercial remote sensing imagery can and should emerge as a key data layer for all boundary disputes” (Wood 2000, 78). This has, to some degree, already occurred: “Google's data-analytic supremacy and its incursions into the hard sciences have established it as a formidable distributor of ‘fact’”—including in cartography (Leslie 2016, 183). Thus, the idea of a neutral international repository of cartographic data for the resolution of disputes (e.g., Claussen 2009, 276–77) may already have appeared in the form of widely available commercial mapping. Yet government sources provide nearly all of the boundary data in “nongovernmental” maps. For example, “Fearing that boundary conflicts may arise from unwitting users of the web mapping program, the State Department decided to reach out to Google and offer up their authoritative boundary dataset” (Kaye n.d., 1). The perception of Google and others as unbiased and unconnected to official positions, combined with the real links across the corporate-government divide, complicates the application of these tools to territorial claims and negotiations (as the Costa Rica–Nicaragua case illustrates below). Considered individually, many features of digital mapping are not entirely new. Official agencies never had a complete monopoly on mapmaking, satellite imagery has existed for decades, all maps enable spatial calculations, and even digital features like layering draw on paper-based metaphors. Nonetheless, taken together and combined with the radically altered context of mapping, these changes add up to a shift in what cartographic tools make possible, resulting in a complex set of implications for territorial conflict resolution (summarized in Table 1). These are wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting. Some point toward easier resolutions, and some toward greater difficulties; some broaden the range of bargains that might be proposed or accepted, and others narrow that range; and some increase the leverage of nonstate actors while others strengthen the state. Table 1. Digital mapping and implications for territorial negotiations Features of digital mapping . Implications for territorial negotiation . Layering: digital maps can present and manipulate multiple layers of information simultaneously. More complex divisions can be depicted and thus negotiated. Layering can reduce loss aversion by weakening the salience of any particular reference point. Presenting a “menu” of settlements can address concession aversion. Multiple layers can make focal points harder to find. Flexibility: users can easily change content and display. More easily adjusted lines can reduce the intractability driven by mapped claims. Impatient bargainers become more willing to hold out for the next round of negotiation and thus become more intransigent. Increased accuracy and certainty: accurate position-finding is widely available; spatial calculations are precise and rapid. Negotiators can calculate the results of proposed divisions immediately, speeding up the process. Expectations of precision remove the possibility of politically useful ambiguity. Satellite imagery and 3D modeling: photorealism and virtual terrain give a more realistic feel. When calculating gains and losses, negotiators give greater weight to information in photorealistic imagery. Changes to affective attachment to territories alter concession aversion. Wider distribution of mapping capabilities: participatory mapping, volunteered information, GPS. A wider audience can measure and calculate territorial losses and gains, narrowing the range of acceptable bargains. If an agreement is reached with public participation and approval, the settlement could be more stable. Government-private interaction: official and private mapping institutions share data and software tools. The public ascribes authority on boundaries to corporate mapping institutions. The use of commercial tools limits government actors’ ability to shape negotiations. Features of digital mapping . Implications for territorial negotiation . Layering: digital maps can present and manipulate multiple layers of information simultaneously. More complex divisions can be depicted and thus negotiated. Layering can reduce loss aversion by weakening the salience of any particular reference point. Presenting a “menu” of settlements can address concession aversion. Multiple layers can make focal points harder to find. Flexibility: users can easily change content and display. More easily adjusted lines can reduce the intractability driven by mapped claims. Impatient bargainers become more willing to hold out for the next round of negotiation and thus become more intransigent. Increased accuracy and certainty: accurate position-finding is widely available; spatial calculations are precise and rapid. Negotiators can calculate the results of proposed divisions immediately, speeding up the process. Expectations of precision remove the possibility of politically useful ambiguity. Satellite imagery and 3D modeling: photorealism and virtual terrain give a more realistic feel. When calculating gains and losses, negotiators give greater weight to information in photorealistic imagery. Changes to affective attachment to territories alter concession aversion. Wider distribution of mapping capabilities: participatory mapping, volunteered information, GPS. A wider audience can measure and calculate territorial losses and gains, narrowing the range of acceptable bargains. If an agreement is reached with public participation and approval, the settlement could be more stable. Government-private interaction: official and private mapping institutions share data and software tools. The public ascribes authority on boundaries to corporate mapping institutions. The use of commercial tools limits government actors’ ability to shape negotiations. Open in new tab Table 1. Digital mapping and implications for territorial negotiations Features of digital mapping . Implications for territorial negotiation . Layering: digital maps can present and manipulate multiple layers of information simultaneously. More complex divisions can be depicted and thus negotiated. Layering can reduce loss aversion by weakening the salience of any particular reference point. Presenting a “menu” of settlements can address concession aversion. Multiple layers can make focal points harder to find. Flexibility: users can easily change content and display. More easily adjusted lines can reduce the intractability driven by mapped claims. Impatient bargainers become more willing to hold out for the next round of negotiation and thus become more intransigent. Increased accuracy and certainty: accurate position-finding is widely available; spatial calculations are precise and rapid. Negotiators can calculate the results of proposed divisions immediately, speeding up the process. Expectations of precision remove the possibility of politically useful ambiguity. Satellite imagery and 3D modeling: photorealism and virtual terrain give a more realistic feel. When calculating gains and losses, negotiators give greater weight to information in photorealistic imagery. Changes to affective attachment to territories alter concession aversion. Wider distribution of mapping capabilities: participatory mapping, volunteered information, GPS. A wider audience can measure and calculate territorial losses and gains, narrowing the range of acceptable bargains. If an agreement is reached with public participation and approval, the settlement could be more stable. Government-private interaction: official and private mapping institutions share data and software tools. The public ascribes authority on boundaries to corporate mapping institutions. The use of commercial tools limits government actors’ ability to shape negotiations. Features of digital mapping . Implications for territorial negotiation . Layering: digital maps can present and manipulate multiple layers of information simultaneously. More complex divisions can be depicted and thus negotiated. Layering can reduce loss aversion by weakening the salience of any particular reference point. Presenting a “menu” of settlements can address concession aversion. Multiple layers can make focal points harder to find. Flexibility: users can easily change content and display. More easily adjusted lines can reduce the intractability driven by mapped claims. Impatient bargainers become more willing to hold out for the next round of negotiation and thus become more intransigent. Increased accuracy and certainty: accurate position-finding is widely available; spatial calculations are precise and rapid. Negotiators can calculate the results of proposed divisions immediately, speeding up the process. Expectations of precision remove the possibility of politically useful ambiguity. Satellite imagery and 3D modeling: photorealism and virtual terrain give a more realistic feel. When calculating gains and losses, negotiators give greater weight to information in photorealistic imagery. Changes to affective attachment to territories alter concession aversion. Wider distribution of mapping capabilities: participatory mapping, volunteered information, GPS. A wider audience can measure and calculate territorial losses and gains, narrowing the range of acceptable bargains. If an agreement is reached with public participation and approval, the settlement could be more stable. Government-private interaction: official and private mapping institutions share data and software tools. The public ascribes authority on boundaries to corporate mapping institutions. The use of commercial tools limits government actors’ ability to shape negotiations. Open in new tab This survey has thus explored the overall possibility space of changes to negotiation processes and outcomes. The cases that follow, however, exhibit a narrower range of specific implications. First, the Dayton negotiations illustrate the impact of using digital cartography in direct negotiation. Key features of digital tools already present in 1995 include layering, calculation, and realistic imagery and modeling. Yet Dayton does not illustrate the significant changes in the broader context of digital mapping—the wider availability of mapping and the complex interweaving of state and nonstate cartography. Instead, two post-Dayton cases reveal some of the complexities of more recent changes: the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (2000–2008) and the Costa Rica–Nicaragua border dispute flare-up of 2010. Digital Mapping and Territory at Dayton The November 1995 negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, accomplished what had appeared an impossible task—bringing peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The talks, hosted by a team from the US State Department headed by Richard Holbrooke, involved the participation of the leaders of the three major parties in the Bosnian conflict: Bosnian president Izebegovic, Croatian president Tudjman, and Yugoslav president Milosevic (acting for the Bosnian Serb faction). The negotiations addressed a range of issues, including the territorial division between the Bosnian Serb entity (Republika Srpska) and the combined Croat and Bosnian Muslim territory (the Federation). Although this division would be an administrative border within a formally unified state, it received the same attention that a new international boundary would have warranted. Dayton provides a useful case for exploring the impact of digital mapping. “Dayton marked the first significant appearance of ‘digital maps’ in diplomatic negotiations” (Johnson 1999, 1), and it is relatively well documented.15 Yet the maps used at Dayton were not entirely digital—paper maps remained more popular among the negotiating principals—making it possible to compare the use of paper and digital mapping tools by the same actors in the same circumstances. The following discussion explores the effects of digital mapping features like layering, calculation, and satellite imagery, first reviewing briefly the technologies used at Dayton and then examining their complex impact on the process of negotiation. Mapping at Dayton While the three parties at Dayton each had their own map experts as advisors, the US delegation provided overall cartographic support. More than fifty staff members from the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA),16 the Army, and contracted firms worked with GIS and other tools. The mapping applications fall into three categories: traditional paper mapping, the digital production of paper maps, and the direct use of digital systems. Part of the US strategy involved providing maps as a means of controlling and shaping the discussions. The US delegation aimed to “flood the negotiation site” with American military cartography, including more than 100,000 printed maps from the DMA (Johnson 1999, 2). Some discussions involved even the most basic maps, such as hand-sketched diagrams exchanged between the principals. For example, in an episode of “napkin diplomacy,” Milosevic and Bosnian Prime Minister Silajdzic sent back and forth during a meal a crude map drawn on a napkin (Holbrooke 1998, 280–81; US Department of State 1997, 229–30). The negotiators also used digital mapping tools, largely in the form of systems for updating and printing new paper maps. Technicians produced thousands of maps on-site in immediate response to requests or proposals (Johnson 1999, 2). These were used to discuss boundaries, consider territorial exchanges, and frame the overall situation. For example, “At one point, the [U.S.] team assembled more than one hundred 1:50000-scale maps into a floor-to-ceiling display of the entire country” (Hasik 2008, 100). The production speed impressed the participants. The typical turnaround—from negotiators marking up a paper map to operators entering that data into the digital system for spatial calculations to printing a new map—took only eighteen minutes, much faster than traditional methods (Johnson 1999, 3–4). The most novel use of digital mapping at Dayton involved PowerScene, the virtual terrain system brought by the DMA (Corson and Minghi 1996, 34–37; Hasik 2008, chapter 6; Johnson 1999, 2). Originally designed for military target selection and mission planning, PowerScene combined a three-dimensional model of terrain with satellite imagery to create a virtual space through which the user could “fly” (as noted earlier). Some of the boundary negotiations took place while the principals directly observed the manipulation of PowerScene by a trained staffer, with the results then transferred into GIS to produce treaty maps. The most widely discussed use of PowerScene involved the negotiation of the road to the Muslim enclave of Gorazde—later known as either the “Clark corridor” (for General Wesley Clark's close involvement) or the “scotch road” (for the apparently liberal drinking by Milosevic and others during the all-night negotiating session).17 The dual naming is revealing. On the one hand, Clark and the American delegation used PowerScene to plan their proposal and then to show Milosevic the need for a corridor that would not leave the road vulnerable to Bosnian Serb attack. In short, PowerScene served as a powerful tool of territorial negotiation—accurate, realistic, and convincing, useful to break through stalemated issues (Watters 1996). On the other hand, however, the “scotch road” designation points to a different feature: the degree to which nearly all parties engaged with it for recreation. “PowerScene also became one of the rare forms of entertainment for many at Dayton, who passed what little spare time they had ‘flying’ through Bosnia” (US Department of State 1997, 232; see also Holbrooke 1998, 283). Effects of Digital Mapping at Dayton The application of digital tools at Dayton offers limited confirmation of the conventional interpretation. Digital mapping made some aspects of map use in negotiation faster, more efficient, and more accurate (e.g., the quick turnaround time and on-demand map production). The improvement was clear to the participants, who had attended pre-summit meetings “supported by a few people working primarily with paper maps and manual measuring devices” (Johnson 1999, 1). While some evidence exists for this position of digital technologies as “mapping, only better,” the rest of this section will examine more complex effects. In spite of the presence of digital mapping at Dayton, little evidence emerges for the potential effects of layering and flexibility, for several reasons. First, the principals remained more comfortable arguing on paper; they “were used to paper maps, the crisp appearance of printed detail, and the flexibility of drawing on their map copy where and when they wished” (Johnson 1999, 2).18 Moreover, no one ever really discussed complex forms of division. Thanks to “a failure of the cartographic imagination” (Crampton 1996, 359), the negotiations aimed exclusively toward drawing a traditional linear boundary between two territories. Even the attempt to implement a more complex scheme for Sarajevo (a “Washington, DC, model”) was pushed aside when Milosevic unexpectedly gave in on control of the city. This set off a furious round of negotiations with pencils on a street map (Holbrooke 1998, 291–93). In other words, complexity was abandoned in favor of a traditional territorial division. The accuracy and certainty of digital mapping, on the other hand, were important since all sides focused on the final land areas of the two territorial entities.19 The initial Contact Group20 agreement had delineated a 51 to 49 percent split (in favor of the Federation), and subsequent proposals consistently framed the issue in terms of percentages. For example, an early US memo reported that the Bosnian Muslim side was “increasingly hinting that they will demand more than 51 percent” (Clinton Digital Library 1995a). Eighteen days into the negotiations, through a series of agreed territorial concessions and adjustments, the ratio had reached 55 to 45, in favor of the Federation. When Milosevic discovered this discrepancy, he demanded a return to 51 to 49, in spite of having agreed to the individual changes that had occurred. As one US official later described the situation, “The problem was that because the system could rapidly calculate the percentages of territory, the Serbs realized they were not getting their 49 percent” (Clinton Digital Library 1996, 13).21 The obsession with percentages, encouraged by the precision of digital mapping, could easily translate into a strong aversion to giving away four percent of Bosnia's territory, no matter the strategic or demographic irrelevance of that particular four percent. The specificity of the calculations made the number itself much more salient. Ambiguity in the final settlement, in other words, was no longer an available strategy. Yet digital mapping tools also made it easy to redraw the boundary quickly, giving territory in a relatively unpopulated area to the Bosnian Serbs and returning to the 51 to 49 division. The precise level of detail available to the principals let them focus on ensuring that important places, such as religious sites or towns, fell within their claim while still adjusting total areas. This provided a means of offering a “menu” of options to each side, thereby ameliorating part of the aversion to making concessions. The speed of the process was also significant: “At one point, over thirty proposed tradeoff areas were digitized and calculated during a period of eight hours” (Crampton 1996, 358). While this does not seem particularly efficient when compared to passing a paper map across a table, in this situation the entire point was to reach an exact territorial distribution, which would have taken much longer to accomplish manually. In spite of their occasional impatience with the process (Johnson 1999, 5), the principals often remarked on the speed of calculation, a subjective evaluation that may have helped keep all parties invested in continuing the process. Yet the fact that a vague delineation by hand had become unacceptable was due as much to the expectations of efficiency and speed created by digital mapping itself as to any intrinsic interest in exact percentages. In other words, digital mapping helped to solve a problem that it may at first have exacerbated. Mapping technologies also interacted with anchoring and reference points at Dayton.22 For example, Bosnian and Croat officials “agreed that the 1994 Contact Group map should be the baseline for any territorial negotiations,” even though that map included several lost territories that were unlikely to be regained (US Department of State 1997, 196). In other words, a reference point can be a mapped division, rather than the de facto status quo. Later in the negotiations, the US delegation tried to establish a new reference point by producing a new map (US Department of State 1997, 216, 219). We see this in US memos: “We are preparing a U.S. map which will make no one happy” (Clinton Digital Library 1995b) and, several days later, “U.S. prepared summary map option and presented to both sides. Not formal U.S. proposal, but has become basis for negotiations” (Clinton Digital Library 1995c). In this case, rapid map production capabilities proved useful for altering the anchor point for all parties. Finally, the emotional resonance of mapping played a significant role at Dayton, further accentuated by the evocative nature of the digital systems. Throughout, negotiators reacted emotionally to maps. At a presummit meeting, for example, Holbrooke (1998, 101) reported that “the mere sight of maps…‘energized’ the Bosnians into a deeply emotional state.” On day eight of Dayton, a “six-hour map marathon” addressing territorial issues had an unexpected downside. Holbrooke noted, “Up to that point, those people had been reasonably cordial to each other—but the sight of the maps drove them nuts” (US Department of State 1997, 206).23 Although these reactions have as much to do with the territories themselves as with their representations in maps, a deep connection exists between the map and the territory it depicts. A map gives a strong “feeling” of the territory and thereby serves in its own right as a symbol of—or threat to—national identity.24 The use of digital tools—particularly PowerScene—interacted with this emotional impact of mapping. First, PowerScene seemed to serve as both a tool for negotiation and a particularly effective and intimidating symbol of “America's technological prowess” (Holbrooke 1998, 283). Unlike other efforts to remind the parties of US power (historic warplanes on display, for example), Power-Scene showed the principals’ own interests, even their homes, on an American military computer system. In fact, PowerScene had been used to plan bombing missions against Bosnian Serb targets—including the destruction of a bridge that erroneously still appeared in the virtual model, a mistake pointed out by Milosevic himself (Watters 1996). This intimidation would not lend a positive affective valence to the system, but even a negative reaction could make the information presented more vivid, compelling, and memorable. The appearance of realism could have a similar effect, increasing the likelihood that the information would be easily recalled. Thus presenting that information in the form of a virtual flyover rather than as a straightforward map or text could alter the evaluation of a particular solution. Clark's success in convincing Milosevic to approve the wider corridor to Gorazde suggests this dynamic. Even the possibly “fun” aspect of using PowerScene could have played a role. In addition to perhaps being intimidated, everyone seems to have been impressed with the technology in a way that could have led to mood-congruent processing. After all, Clark made the case for the Gorazde corridor to Milosevic while they were enjoying themselves, drinking scotch and flying virtually over Bosnia. Participants on multiple sides noted the remarkable character of the system. Holbrooke describes it as “the magic of Power-scene,” (Clinton Digital Library 1995d); another US official recalled afterwards that he himself “was very impressed” and noted “the way that people from the Balkan delegations were impressed” (Clinton Digital Library 1996, 13). This positive feeling, which like other emotions can be “contagious” (Mercer 2014, 524), may have made it easier for Milosevic to accept the proposed territorial concession. Of course, his emotional response would probably mix the positive (the system was impressive and enjoyable) with the negative (it had been used in the bombing of his side's interests). Even the latter, however, would raise the profile of the information presented, potentially making it more convincing. The resulting concession on Gorazde may have involved only a small piece of territory, but it represented an important breakthrough on a difficult matter. The following day, Holbrooke noted that the session with PowerScene led to “the first movement on this issue in over 36 hours” (Clinton Digital Library 1995d). Many factors play into even the most straightforward negotiation over territory, and Dayton had its share of additional complexities. Yet there are reasons to attribute a real, if limited, impact to digital mapping. PowerScene stimulated an emotional reaction in the negotiators, potentially reshaping evaluations of outcomes and helping to overcome sticking points. The battle over the 51 to 49 split reveals the importance of digital detail and accuracy; easy, precise calculation both generated challenges and helped to overcome them. Unfortunately, however, it remains difficult to empirically connect a new technological system to an observable change in negotiation processes, let alone to the overall outcome of the summit in terms of the agreement reached. The limited amount of information directly pertaining to these systems and their use, as well as the challenge of observing key intervening variables like the principals’ emotional states or affective reactions, makes it nearly impossible to draw that connection conclusively. Nonetheless, multiple points emerged at which the negotiations nearly ended in failure, only to be saved by a sudden, last-minute reversal. For some of those—such as the successful negotiation of the land corridor to Gorazde—digital mapping tools were definitely involved and likely had some positive influence. The effect, however, was not solely to make accurate information available more efficiently. Instead, more complex interactions between the technological systems and the processes of negotiation played a role in moving toward a compromise. New mapping technologies likely did not serve as the decisive factor in getting Dayton to a signed agreement. Yet they did contribute in identifiable ways to the positive conclusion of the negotiations. Digital Mapping and Negotiation since 1995 Dayton was transitional, in terms of the mapping tools available and their application. More than two decades later, we would expect to see a closer integration of digital maps into negotiating processes and further refinements in technical capabilities—as well as some trends unforeseen in 1995. For example, tools like PowerScene are no longer likely to intimidate or amaze negotiators. Satellite imagery, terrain modeling, and virtual “flyovers” are now commonplace in Google Earth and other freely available online systems. The affective impact of their realism, however, will continue to shape evaluations of information and arguments—especially as imagery and modeling become even more accurate and convincing. Additional dramatic changes since 1995 include not only the growing availability of advanced cartographic systems to more governments and even to private individuals but also the increasingly complex interaction between corporate and government mapping institutions. This section examines two cases that illustrate some of these post-Dayton dynamics: the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (2000–2008) and the Costa Rica–Nicaragua border dispute of 2010. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission Created as part of the agreement ending the 1998–2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian war, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was mandated to settle their contested boundary based on international law and colonial divisions. In 2002, the EEBC released a delimitation decision, which both sides then refused to implement. The EEBC's efforts illustrate some of the dynamics involved with digital mapping tools: their usefulness—and occasional insufficiency—in delineation, the increased interaction with the responses of a wider public, and the possibility for new means of demarcation. Delineating the new boundary and showing it to the parties integrally involved digital technologies. US diplomats, for example, used a virtual flyover system to demonstrate to Ethiopian officials where the new boundary would fall.25 Reports indicate that this evocative and realistic system proved more effective than traditional mapping in showing the delimitation, and the virtual flyover brought out an emotional response from Ethiopian officials who recognized the villages being depicted. Yet new technologies could not overcome several typical delimitation challenges, including unreliable geographic information and ambiguous source material. For example, preexisting discrepancies in village names undermined efforts to use GPS and other technological solutions to determine in whose territory specific villages fell (Abbink 2003, 223). Likewise, “the variety of different local names” given to streams and other geographic features during the colonial period made the use of descriptions in colonial treaties problematic (Péninou 1998, 48). Italian colonial maps, moreover, depicted the border in at least three different ways (Guazzini 2009, 128). More precise technologies, in short, could not solve these problems. The internet also enabled broader public participation as users in online forums quickly examined and criticized the 2002 delimitation decision. For example, a “Demarcation Watch” website explicitly addressed the Eritrean diaspora community.26 The ability to report on an ongoing boundary dispute, using publicly available geospatial information and the internet as a means of reaching a targeted global audience, marks a significant change since 1995. The EEBC's most controversial application of digital mapping was its decision to implement a “virtual demarcation.” The commission released its delimitation ruling in 2002, followed in 2003 with maps for demarcation (the process of placing physical markers on the ground). Neither Eritrea nor Ethiopia accepted the proposed boundary, and both refused to carry out physical demarcation. In 2006, the commission wrote that, in the interest of discharging its mandate, it was “obliged to adopt another approach to effect the demarcation of the boundary” (EEBC 2006, paragraph 19), based entirely on a list of coordinates and supporting documents rather than physical markers. From the EEBC's statement: Modern techniques of image processing and terrain modelling make it possible, in conjunction with the use of high resolution aerial photography, to demarcate the course of the boundary by identifying the location of turning points…by both grid and geographical coordinates with a degree of accuracy that does not differ significantly from pillar site assessment and emplacement undertaken in the field…. Although these techniques have been available for some time, the Commission has not resorted to them because the actual fixing of boundary pillars, if at all possible, was the demarcation method of first choice. (EEBC 2006, paragraph 20) The EEBC explicitly couched this attempted innovation in terms of technologies making new practices possible—although not necessarily preferable. Moreover, the Commission advanced the “degree of accuracy” as an appropriate standard for comparison; now that virtual demarcation is as accurate as physical, it is equally legitimate. The commission also noted that physical markers should still be placed if the parties were to become willing to do so within the following year. No progress was made, and in early 2008, the commission declared that “the boundary now automatically stands as demarcated by the boundary points listed” (UNSC 2008, Annex II, paragraph 11). The EEBC justified virtual demarcation by citing earlier cases settled without physical demarcation: a 1966 Argentina-Chile border delimitation in which aerial photographs served as “the sole authority,” a 1993 UN decision regarding the Iraq-Kuwait border that relied only on a list of coordinates, and the recognition of maritime boundaries without physical markers (EEBC 2006, paragraphs 20, 23–26). The reaction to the EEBC plan was predominantly negative, with both sides rejecting the idea (Kaikobad 2009, 218). The Ethiopian government specifically “contended that the Commission's virtual demarcation ‘has no validity in international law’” (UNSC 2008, paragraph 23), a sentiment echoed in several academic analyses (e.g., Kaikobad 2009, 220–21; for a more positive interpretation, see Claussen 2009, 275–77). Critics noted the contradiction inherent in the concept of virtual demarcation: [D]emarcation is in fact a very simple idea: it is the physical marking out of the boundary on the ground. Any other meaning ascribed to it would be difficult to accept in the absence of usage justifying such a variation. There is no escape from this by stating that “virtual demarcation” is but another method of demarcation. (Kaikobad 2009, 221) Demarcation is physical, making the very concept of a non-physical demarcation untenable.27 The general skepticism with which the EEBC decision was greeted reflects a significant level of “cognitive dissonance” among officials and observers (Claussen 2009, 277), a deeply engrained reaction that probably undermined any possibility of virtual demarcation being taken seriously anytime soon. Like the preference of the negotiators at Dayton for paper maps over digital tools, actors’ mental frameworks can impose significant constraints on the application of technical capabilities and on how much they influence outcomes. The EEBC's virtual demarcation at least represents an attempt—albeit unsuccessful—to apply new mapping technologies to an issue facing many third-party efforts to settle territorial disputes. In this case, virtual demarcation probably had almost no hope of success, given the unwillingness of either side to implement the boundary. Nonetheless, the capability might eventually prove useful when the expense or complexity of physical demarcation—rather than political intransigence—remains the major obstacle to a peaceful settlement. Then, a greater chance for a stable resolution would result. Costa Rica–Nicaragua 2010 Tensions between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, while not involving direct state-to-state negotiations, illustrate some of the unpredictable effects of the wide availability of digital mapping. Their dispute over a small border section has existed for more than a century, but hostilities flared up in late 2010 when Nicaraguan troops crossed into territory claimed by Costa Rica. Digital mapping initially appeared to have played an unexpected role: one Nicaraguan official noted in a newspaper interview that the incursion was justified because Google Maps showed the territory as Nicaraguan.28 Media coverage immediately focused on how the online map may have caused “the first Google Maps war” (Jacobs 2012). Google quickly reminded users that its boundary depictions are unofficial, and the company soon corrected its maps to match the internationally accepted Costa Rican claim. Yet subsequent analysis has revealed a more complicated picture. The Nicaraguan military official who mentioned Google Maps probably meant this “more tongue-in-cheek than most casual observers understood” (Mackey 2010). It was “a taunt” (Geens 2010) rather than a post facto justification, let alone the inspiration for the Nicaraguan incursion. Nonetheless, many readers found believable a story about an official state action instigated by a boundary on Google Maps because of the authority ascribed to the company's mapping platforms: “Google Earth and Google Maps have become the online cartographic resources of reference…. Google is often the arbiter of first recourse for borders and toponyms” (Jacobs 2012). What does the ascription of authority to Google mean for territorial disputes? Although it is true that, officially, Google's borders “have no government's imprimatur” (Jacobs 2012), the majority of the boundary data in online maps comes from government sources (Kaye n.d., 3). In this case, Google's source (US State Department data) contained the error. So, in a way, users could read that line as the position of the US government. That mistaken position would have been inconsequential, however, if it had not been easily available in a free online mapping platform, seen by many users as authoritative. It is only because of easy availability that the mistaken depiction served any purpose for Nicaraguan claims, even if only a rhetorical one. The ubiquity of extraordinarily detailed online maps and high-resolution satellite imagery creates new opportunities for what might otherwise be minor mapping errors to contribute to actual political disputes. Conclusion Information technology is reshaping nearly all aspects of international politics. This article focuses on one particular domain: the impact of digital mapping on negotiations over disputed territories. Digital mapping can sometimes provide faster, more accurate cartographic tools that facilitate conflict resolution. But it also gives rise to more complex effects. It allows negotiators to consider a wider range of settlement types, it may alter emotional attachments to territory, and it gives a broader audience the capability to intervene in territorial disputes. While these effects do not necessarily impede peaceful resolution, they do not automatically lead to better outcomes. Dayton revealed this complex, contradictory dynamic through the increased salience of spatial calculations and the emotional reaction to realistic virtual terrain. Later cases illustrated the importance of new technical capabilities and their wider distribution for how territorial claims are contested or settled. This argument brings together theoretical and substantive concerns that often proceed in isolation. For example, an extensive body of research examines the origin, persistence, and termination of territorial disputes, including the possibility of negotiated resolutions (e.g., Goertz and Diehl 1992; Lustick 1993; Huth 1996; Wiegand 2011; Toft 2014; Goertz, Diehl, and Balas 2016). Although territorial interests have been shaped in fundamental ways by technologies—including the maps used to visualize, negotiate, and settle territorial claims—studies of territorial conflict largely overlook the impact of new negotiation tools. As shown above, representational technologies have significant effects on disputes over territory. Without a map capable of showing a particular boundary or division, that division cannot be negotiated, agreed to, or enforced. Thus, if we want to improve the chances of resolving seemingly intractable conflicts,29 we should encourage the use of new technical tools. We should do so not because they will automatically overcome barriers to resolution, but rather because new technologies might, at the very least, make it possible to put different solutions on the table—or on the screen. Yet we also need to remain aware of the potential downsides to new technologies. Technical improvements often have unexpected consequences. This is hardly a novel point, but it is one that policy makers and technical experts have not yet applied to digital mapping. Moreover, the growing importance of “geospatial intelligence” will make new cartographic technologies increasingly central to intelligence gathering and decision-making in the future.30 The ways in which technologies depict or describe political interests can transform how leaders negotiate or bargain. In the case of mapping, how territory is depicted and manipulated on paper or on a screen shapes what it means to negotiate over territory. This operates on multiple levels: social knowledge and underlying ideas (how mapping shapes the notion of what is being negotiated); the mechanics of political interaction (how maps are used in, and can alter, negotiations over territory); and the downstream outcomes of those interactions (how technologies enable or discourage the implementation of agreements). Furthermore, as a system of visual representation, mapping offers a useful domain to consider other interconnections, such as that between international politics and aesthetics, including the visual arts (e.g., Bleiker 2009; Campbell 2007). Cartographers have long asserted a claim to scientific “accuracy” as opposed to the “artistic” depiction of the world. Yet all mapping is a form of representation that involves aesthetic choices, as well as interpretation and selective presentation of the “real world” (Wood 2010, chapter 2). Thus exploring the tension between “mimetic” and “aesthetic” approaches (Bleiker 2001, 511) can be especially productive here. Research in international relations has examined numerous issues related to technological change, including the politics of nuclear weapons or drone systems, the revolution in military affairs, the globalization of information warfare, and the security implications of information and communication technologies.31 In all of these areas, we should continue to investigate how new tools do more than alter capabilities. Technologies form a key part of the framework of international politics, reshaping interests, processes, and outcomes (Mayer et al. 2014). Technology does not take priority over other factors; instead it interacts with causal processes identified in existing international relations research programs, strengthening or weakening particular processes in identifiable ways. Thus, instead of assuming new technologies to be simply “better, stronger, faster,” we should ask pertinent questions such as: Who gains or loses leverage when new tools are applied? How do new tools reshape ends as well as means? How do existing—and evolving—political interests and processes affect the tools used and the technological innovations pursued? For example, studies of emotion in international relations can benefit from considering how emotional processes interact with the framework provided by technological systems. As Bially Mattern (2014, 591) puts it, “The relevant question is not whether emotion matters, but which emotions matter, for which behaviors, and through which cognitive processes.” Technological systems and their entailments will shape those dynamics. We must, in short, integrate technological factors into all our analyses—not only into questions focusing on explicitly technical issues—because technologies are implicated in nearly every process we study. And, just as technologies provide means of connection in the world we study, the integration of technology into our international relations theories will help to build new, useful connections across diverse research programs. Supplementary Information Supplementary information may be found at http://sites.google.com/site/jordanbranch/research/ and at the International Studies Quarterly data archive. Footnotes 1 " The History of Cartography project defines maps as “graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world” (Harley and Woodward 1987, xvi), an expansive definition that usefully includes the high-tech (Geographic Information Systems [GIS], computer-based spatial representations such as Google Earth, GPS navigation devices) as well as the low-tech (hand-drawn sketches). 2 " In this article, I define “territorial negotiations” as attempts to negotiate a solution to a dispute concerning competing claims to political authority over a territory. Often this involves negotiations over where a boundary should fall, but it could instead involve a dispute over whether a boundary should be drawn at all. Negotiations over other issues—resources, trade policies, legal jurisdictions, and so on—also sometimes rely on maps, but those uses remain outside the scope of this article. However, some of the potential interactions between the cartographic tools used and the processes and outcomes of negotiation explored below might also appear in this broader category of all negotiations that use maps. 3 " See the online supplementary material for an in-depth discussion of the conventional approach to digital mapping and territorial negotiation. 4 " See Sismondo (2010) for a useful review; major texts include Latour (1987), Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch (1987), Feenberg (2002), Jasanoff 2004. 5 " Emphasis in original. 6 " The idea of “maps as communication devices” was promoted in the mid-twentieth century by scholars such as Arthur Robinson, who hoped to make the study of mapmaking “scientific” (Crampton 2001, 235). This view has been largely abandoned in the academic study of mapping. Note, however, that mapping techniques do rely on computing and other information and communication technologies. 7 " The literature on the history of territoriality is extensive (e.g., Gottman 1973; Sack 1986; Elden 2013). 8 " The literature on international negotiation is vast; particularly useful works include Hopmann 1995, 2002; Iklé 1964; Kremenyuk 1991. 9 " On prospect theory in international relations, see Levy 1997; Boettcher 2004; McDermott 2004; and Mercer 2005 (among many others). 10 " On emotions in international relations, see, among others, Crawford 2000; McDermott 2004, chapter 6; Mercer 2010; Sasley 2010, 2011; and the forum in International Theory (6:3). 11 " While this article emphasizes specific, potentially observable effects of emotions on negotiation processes, emotions in general do not necessarily obstruct or undermine rational decision-making. Instead, emotions are an integral part of rationality (Mercer 2010). 12 " While many government mapping systems are classified and thus cannot be easily examined, commercial technologies suggest how government technologies are used, and state actors sometimes use publicly available tools or systems closely emulating them. 13 " Individuals judge outcomes based in part on how easily information regarding those outcomes can be recalled (McDermott 2004, 63). 14 " “An equal exchange does not feel equal to either side; each side would only feel comfortable with an unequal exchange that benefitted itself” (McDermott 2004, 139). 15 " Note, however, that this case involves research challenges common to summits and face-to-face negotiations in general, such as a need to rely on questionable first-hand accounts and an imbalance regarding which side the sources come from. See the Supplementary Materials, available online, for a discussion of these challenges and a survey of the specific materials available on Dayton. 16 " Formed in 1972, the military DMA was merged in 1996 with other mapping and imaging agencies to form the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in 2003. 17 " Holbrooke's next-day memo to Secretary of State Warren Christopher mentions “the substantial amount of scotch consumed by many of the group” (Clinton Digital Library 1995d). 18 " Only in some of the lower-level negotiations that followed Dayton is there evidence of direct, hands-on use of digital tools, unmediated by printouts and pencils. 19 " Spatial calculations were performed by technical aides, for whom GIS “delivered an incredible relief from drudgery” (Johnson 1999, 4). 20 " A body made up of representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia. 21 " Note that this first-hand account (from Chris Hoh of the State Department) does not match some other narratives (such as Holbrooke 1998, 294), which instead cite a poster highlighting Federation gains (and containing the 55-to-45 figure) as what alerted Milosevic to the shift in percentages. In either case, the calculation was done by the DMA mapping team using GIS tools. 22 " What does not appear at Dayton is the focal point issue noted earlier—more likely in a negotiation over a boundary through less well-known and emotionally charged territories, in which finding a common focus would be helpful. 23 " US delegation memos report the same: “shouts, anger, highlight talks” over maps (Clinton Digital Library 1995b). 24 " As is explored most effectively by Thongchai 1994. See also Krishna 1994; Batuman 2010; Kumar 2010. 25 " “Ethiopian Foreign Minister” (2006). 26 " http://dehai.org/demarcation-watch/. 27 " Yet virtual demarcation may become more acceptable as practical objections to it are overcome. Since one of the purposes of demarcation is to remind individuals in the border region of the boundary's existence and location, archiving a list of coordinates with annotated maps and imagery fails that test (Kaikobad 2009, 221). Yet as more individuals use GPS-based navigation devices like smartphones, a virtually marked boundary will become more “real” since it would exist on those devices and their representations. These technologies are far from ubiquitous in undeveloped, rural areas like the contested parts of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, but their capabilities show that the notion of a virtual demarcation could become more tenable. 28 " “Vea la foto satelital de Google y ahí se ve la frontera” [look at Google's satellite photo and there one can see the border] (Mata 2010). 29 " For example, disputes over “indivisible” territories (Goddard 2010; Hassner 2009; Toft 2003). 30 " For example, the rapid expansion of the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Ambinder 2011). 31 " See, for example, Sagan 2011; Tannenwald 2007; Carvin 2012; Sloan 2002; Choucri 2012; Denardis 2014; and the Journal of Peace Research special issue (52:3) on communication technologies and conflict. 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OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Author notes " Author's note: For their comments and suggestions, I would like to thank Rose McDermott, Peter Andreas, Jeff Colgan, Hein Goemans, Jeremy Crampton, the anonymous reviewers and editors of ISQ, and the audiences where versions of this work have been presented: the 2014 ISA meeting, Georgetown University's Mortara Center for International Studies, Cornell University's Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, the Watson Center at the University of Rochester, and the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies at McGill University. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
TI - Territorial Conflict in the Digital Age: Mapping Technologies and Negotiation
JF - International Studies Quarterly
DO - 10.1093/isq/sqx046
DA - 2017-09-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/territorial-conflict-in-the-digital-age-mapping-technologies-and-BBZr0bjd1S
SP - 557
VL - 61
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -