Territorial Conflict in the Digital Age: Mapping Technologies and Negotiation

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.