Delli Zotti 1982 Transnational Relations of a Border Region: the Case of Friuli-Venetia Julia

Responsibility for the translations lies with the editors Copyright © 1982 by Franco Angeli Editore, Milano, Italy È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale o ad uso interno o didattico, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, non autorizzata.

CONTENTS Introduction Raimondo Strassoldo and Giovanni Delli Zotti 7 Part I - Cross-Border Interactions and Structures: Case Studies Transnational Relations in a Border Region: the Case of Friuli-Venetia Julia Giovanni Delli Zotti 25 The Elements of Regional Integration in Border Areas Vladimir Klemencic and Ivo Piry1 61 Consumer, Enterprise, and Labour Mobility Adjustments in a Two-Nation Border System: the Case of Mexico Jean Revel-Mouroz 73 Alpazur: a New Trans-Frontier Region Jean-Pierre Jardel 87 Federalism and Transfrontier Cooperation Charles Ricq 101 Part II - Regions and Frontiers in Western Europe: Political and Institutional Aspects Frontiers, Regions, and Transnational Integration: the Federalist Viewpoint Andrea Chiti-Battelli 119 The Possibilities of European Community Action in Favour of Frontier Regions Gommaar van der Auwera 129 Scenarios for Conflict in Frontier Regions Malcolm Anderson 145

Strassoldo and Delli Zotti Introduction

Cooperation and Conflict in Border Areas Angeli, Milano, 1982

Part III - Societal Boundaries and Their Overcoming: Theoretical Models Boundary Conflict in a Comparative Perspective: A Theore- tical Framework Rune Johansson 179 The Border as Sociological, Social or National Phenomenon - the Anthropogenous Region Franz Heigl 215 Territorial Borders as System Boundaries Niklas Luhmann 235 Boundaries in Sociological Theory: a Reassessment Raimondo Strassoldo 245 Participation of Local Communities in Building Future Worlds Chadwick F. Alger 273 By Way of Synthesis Umberto Gori 309

INTRODUCTION

This book belongs to what has been termed a "minor ava-lanche" of literature on frontier regions in Europe. It all started in the late sixties, when it became clear that the free flow of capitals, workers and shoppers across European boundaries had some characteristic and not altogether positive effects on bor-der areas. A tension was building up between the dynamics of economic (and, in part, ecological) processes on the one side, and the statics of the legal, administrative and political "super-structure" on the other. It was earlier felt in the most developed areas of the "European backbone"; the Lotharingian strip along the Rhine axis, from Basel to Liege-Aachen to Groningen-Friesland. Wage differentials were moving masses of frontier commuters, living in one country and working in the other; price differentials in consumers goods fed the growth of commercial structures aimed at markets on the other side of the border; the development of urban and industrial structures required joint planning of towns and regions along the border, specially in the most densely settled areas. Chambers of commerce, manufac-turers' associations, town councils, planning institutions had soon to face problems requiring the cooperation of their coun-terparts across the border. And soon they met the resistance of the legal-administrative systems; local technical problems esca-lated to general political problems. It became clear that



8 the further growth of these regions demanded the harmoniza-tion of laws, policies and plans. It demanded, in effect, the fatal step from the economic to the political integration of Europe. Border regions attracted wide attention as specimens, labora-tory tests and show-cases of some of the central problems of European politics.

Not unexpectedly, the claims of frontier regions received a rather lame response from the EEC authorities, sticking strictly to the economic level. But their potential at the political and more general cultural level was quickly grasped by such bodies as the Council of European Townships and the Council of Europe.

Under their sponsorship, the word was passed from the "hard core" frontier regions along the "internal" borders to regions lying at the "external" frontiers with non-EEC states, and even to mari-time regions; the cooperation across the borders of the Scandina-vian countries was also included in the "problematique", and the ranks of "frontier regions" swelled accordingly. So the problems stemming from the incongruence of economic dynamics and or-ganizational statics were supplemented by other problems, such as those of the in satisfactory development rate of regions facing empty quarters or locked frontiers. At the same time, the original hard core of economic aspects was extended and enriched with other motives, of a more cultural and political nature. It was stressed that national frontiers kept divided what in earlier times had been unitary communities, and that many frontier communi-ties had more in common with their neighbours across the borders than with other co-national regions. It was recalled that many frontier areas had suffered from nationalism - in terms of broken communities, cultural repression, and war destruction - more than other areas, and thus had firmer claims to redress. Finally it was

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emphasized that frontier regions were in many cases areas of mixed and uncertain identity at the linguistic, cultural and national level. On the one hand this posed problems of protection and promotion of minorities, which, although strictly speaking an exquisitely internal question (since World War II), had clear implications in good-neighbours policies of European countries; on the other hand, the double or multiple cultural and linguistic identities of many border populations could be developed into a driving force to European uni-fication and, more generally, of international integration.

Such themes threaded across a number of meetings at various levels of size, officiality and scholarship. They helped to pinpoint and codify the major issues; they provided a wealth of detailed analysis; they helped to raise the consciousness of frontier regions as a group, their mutual recognition, the exchange of experiences and support. Largely through the efforts of the Council of Europe, they built up the momentum that finally resulted, in 1981, in the Framework Convention on Trans-Frontier Cooperation.

This frame convention, although certainly much weaker than what the most ardent promoters of frontier regions ex-pected, certainly opens an important door and introduces some remarkable new juridical principles in such matters.

All this activity produced also a sizeable amount of literatu-re, as mentioned at the beginning. One early contribution was the volume 'Boundaries and Regions-Explorations in the Growth and Peace Potential of the Peripheries' edited by one of us in 1973 and based on the papers read at the conference on "Pro-blems and Perspectives of Border Regions" held in Gorizia one year earlier. It remains one of the most wide-ranging and mas-sive works on the subject, with a variety of focuses and targets, of disciplinary approaches and empirical objects, of levels of



10 discourse and even of languages.

What we present now, at a decade's distance, is a collection of papers presented at a second Gorizia conference (December 1979) organized by the Institute of International Sociology on the general theme "Boundaries, Regions and Transnational Inte-gration". More specific topics for discussion were proposed:

A. Regionalism and federalism.

Regionalism is a modern version of classical federalism; the strengthening of local and regional communities is a basic condi-tion of democracy and liberalism; in Europe, it is also an instru-ment for the weakening of the centralized nation-states and the growth of a more united Europe. Europe and the Regions have a common foe, and can develop only through mutual support. The Europe of the Regions is also a fascinating political project around which long-term efforts can be focused and mobilized.

B. Border regions.

A second aim of the conference was a reassessment of Euro-pean border regions' predicament, in the light of the radically changed economic and political situations, both marked now by stagnation or outright recession. The intervening years, however, had seen also a remarkable growth of trans-frontier cooperation and the development of important institutions in this field. Among them, the organizations linking the alpine regions (Arge-Alp, Alps-Adria), for obvious reasons of particular interest to the Go-rizia institute, but also the maturing Frame Convention on Trans-Frontier Cooperation was an important topic.

C. Regions as trans-national actors.

A more scholarly interest was centered around the emer-gence of regions and of local authorities as actors in the

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international (or, more accurately, transnational) relations. The transnational activities of individuals, groups and non-govern-mental organizations had been for years the subject-matter of the "sociology of international relations"; in more recent times they had drawn the attention of political scientists as well. The discussion of the theoretical and methodological problems of this approach were a third goal of the conference.

D. The theory of boundaries.

One of the main goals of the first Gorizia conference had been the development of a sociological "theory of boundaries", a logical correlate of the "systems approach". Under criticism here is the conceptualization of groups, communities, organiza-tions, in terms of "closed systems"; it is proposed to focus in-stead on system-environment relations (transactions), and to study the emergence and dynamics of systems from the point of view of boundary processes. Systems can then be classified according to their boundary-maintaining mechanisms {"defini-tions"), and boundary processes can be shown to be responsible for important social phenomena.

The response of the invited scholars, of course, did not match exactly to the organizer's philosophy, It turned out that the most interesting frontier issue, for many people, was one not explicitly outlined in the conference background paper: namely, the problems of linguistic and ethnic fringes in border areas. This seems to mirror a general concern, both in academic and in general political and cultural circles, for the minority question. The 70s had witnessed the emergence of the "unmel-table ethnics" in the USA, the re-awakening of the "Celtic fringe" in Europe, the recourse of some minorities to violence, the faltering assimilation processes, the reversal of minority’s aim from non-discrimination to active maintenance of differ



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ences; minority rights had become, along with ecology, one pre-ferred outlet of the revolutionary spirits of the '68; cultural and lin-guistic pluralism also within nations had become a positive goal for political action, and sanctioned as such also by European bodies (Council of Europe resolution of 1981). The number of papers on these topics presented at the Gorizia Conference was such as to warrant their publication in a separate volume: B. De Marchi, A.M. Boileau (eds.), Boundaries and Minorities in Western Europe.

The papers published here can be grouped into three sec-tions.

1. Cross-Border Interactions and Structures: Case Studies

It seemed advisable to open this collection with some em-

pirical case studies that ,give the substance for the discussion put forward in the more theoretical contributions in the follow-ing two sections.

The essay by Giovanni Delli Zotti deals with the transnational relations of one specific frontier region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and reflects nicely one component of the growth of the Alps Adria trans-frontier region. It is also relevant, from a methodological and theoretical point of view, for its attempt to define, and classify systematically the actors of a transnational web of transaction. One major inspiration in this work comes, of course, from C.F. Alger, one of whose relevant essays is also to be found in this book. The technique employed has been the standard one in this type of research: content analysis of newspaper items (event-interactions). One of the most important findings is the great in-crease of the events over the period of time studied (1957-1977) and in particular the increase above the average of the relations with Yugoslav actors. The relations with these partners, that had been all but halted in the cold war years (1947-1955) seem today

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to have reached a certain maturity. Further spectacular in-creases can hardly be expected unless major structural changes in the international context of these transfrontier relations does come to the fore. Among these foreseeable changes one could cite the full implementation of the "Osimo Agreements", be-tween Italy and Yugoslavia, in a stagnant phase since their sig-nature (1975); another is the political will of the concerned States to put into practice the already mentioned Framework Convention on Transfrontier Cooperation of the Council of Europe.

The contribution by Vladimir Klemencic and Ivo Piry is also based on the analysis of the relations in the Yugoslav-Italian border, with a special attention to local border traffic. This is based on the study of transactions, an aspect that was left out of the research by Delli Zotti, so that the two papers can be considered as mutually integrating. Event-interact ions and transactions are, indeed, the two sides of the process level in the transnational (and international) relations. Here again the important finding is the great increase in the volume of the transactions. However, particularly in the case of the economic transactions, only major structural changes, possibly those en-visaged above here, will bring more vitality to the process and lead beyond the present levels of economic cooperation.

The essay by Jean Revel-Mouroz on the US-Mexico border was certainly a little anomalous in a conference focused on European questions. But it outlined with such clarity and skill this very paradigmatic case that it was decided to include it in this book. We think 'it helps to highlight, by the virtues of the comparative method and the strong contrasts it raises, the pecu-liarities of the present European frontier problems and offers a scenario of one of the possible - if not desirable - developments in cross-border relations. At the Mexican-American



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border the transactions have reached such an intensity that one can now speak of a fully mutually dependent transfrontier economy. The author presents, together with the figures that give the pulse of this booming transnational activity, also the socio-economic implications on the side of the labour, con-sumers and enterprises. Also the major changes occurred in the governmental policies of the two countries are analised. These policies are aimed at the modification of certain adverse conse-quences of the transfrontier activity that emerged in particular on the Mexican side (growing dependency, illegal emigration) .

While the last three contributions are mainly centered on the analysis either of event-interactions or transactions, the es-say by Jean-Pierre Jardel is focused on the issue-areas, on the problems around which cooperation can develop, and the fol-lowing paper, by Charles Ricq, is centered on the analysis of the institutions that are dedicating their efforts to the coopera-tion in transfrontier regions.

The transfrontier region "Alp-Azur", studied by Jardel, can be considered the western counterpart of the "Alps-Adria" on the eastern side of the Alps. The growing awareness of the need for transfrontier cooperation in the Alpe-Azur has lead to several initiatives in the field of transport and communication. They seem to be facing, however, an "impasse" during the last few years. In this case too the Framework Convention, if correctly understood and employed, might enhance the process of coop-eration, although France is a member state that has not, up to now, signed it. It will depend also on the decisions of the new French executive whether the Alp-Azur will develop into and exemplar of a viable transfrontier region or whether the border regions should separately find solutions to their problems.

Charles Ricq brings us, instead, in a transfron-

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tier region that can be cited as a model of what can be done in this field when political will and realism, or rather pragmatism, meet in trying to find viable solutions to common problems. The Geneva transfrontier region is in fact a long-dated reality, so that the institutional channels of cooperation are more de-veloped than in other places. The author is thus able to provide us with an accurate analysis of the organisms of transfrontier cooperation and of the powers devoluted to them.

2. Regions and Frontiers in Western Europe: Political and Institutional Aspects

The following group of essays is characterized by the at-

tempt to deal with the general problems of frontier regions in Western Europe, but from three very different points of view. Andrea Chiti-Battelli, a veteran fighter for European federal-ism, takes a rather dismal stock of the state of affairs concern-ing European unification. He indicts the nation-state as an out-moded (hot-air balloon) instrument to move towards higher levels of political integration. He clearly, and very provoca-tively, advocates a "Europe of the Regions" along the lines proposed in the last few years by such scholars as D. de Rougemont, G. Heraud and, - with reservations - S. Salvi. He stresses the necessity to devise the practical means to such a goal, and gives a good example by articulating very concretely a possible regional articulation of Western Europe.

For quite different reasons, an aura of pessimism on the perspectives of European regions, and frontier regions in particu-lar, transpires from the essay of Gommar van der Auwera, a sen-ior official in Bruxelles, the many limitations and few possibilities of the European Communities’ actions on the behalf



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of frontier regions. He reminds us two sobering facts. First, the competence of the Communities is obviously re-

stricted geographically to the territories of the member states, so that only the transfrontier regions that belong entirely to this area might eventually benefit of the European intervention. "External" frontier regions are thus left with their owns. Sec-ondly the Communities are not equipped with tools for inter-vention in border regions. The Community Regional Policy, implemented by the two instruments of. the European Regional Development Fund and the Regional Policy Committee (set up only in 1975), has been in fact created to reduce the socio-economic imbalances among the regions in the Community; and the border regions may, or may not, belong to less fa-voured areas. In other words, it is reiterated, the Community is concerned with border problems only to the extent that they are economic problems.

A middle course between the spirited call to arms of Chiti-Battelli and the down-to-earth technicity of van der Auwera is taken by the study of Malcolm Anderson, a political scientist who is deeply interested in the process of European integration, but who also has a very keen eye for the many real difficulties, ten-sions and conflicts that beset this process. His paper weaves to-gether a number of theoretical statements drawn from the litera-ture on conflict, on international relations and on political sociol-ogy, and illustrates his thesis with a wide array of empirical cases. Conflict in border areas is shown to be related to phenomena like ethno nationalism, social dislocations resulting from spillover ef-fects of economic activities on the other side of the boundary, and other economic/ecological phenomena, "excessive territorial de-fensiveness on the part of central government and bureaucracies", and others. Anderson stresses the continuing central role of the nation-state in human affairs, in Western Europe as

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elsewhere (in opposition to earlier theories on his "demise”) and the many weaknesses of the ethno-regional movements. He also reviews the various kinds of suspicions that cross-border cooperation provokes not only in the representatives of the na-tionalist-centralist tradition, but also in other politically impor-tant groups; and cites as an example the fears - which he deems fantastic - that the interregional organizations in the central and eastern Alps may be an instrument of Bavarian expansion to-ward the Adriatic. Another example is the fear that ethnic movements in border areas may grow into secessionist forces - also a quite unlikely development, except in a few cases. All considered, both the problems and the promises of frontier re-gions seem still of secondary importance if compared to the to-tal situation in Europe; the problems of frontier regions have still to be adequately recognized, by the States, well before the instruments for their solutions are developed.

3. Societal Boundaries and Their Overcoming: Theoretical Models

The third group of essays is characterized by a prevailing

theoretical orientation. Rune Johansson addresses himself to the one type of boundary conflict that M. Anderson explicitly excluded from his treatment, i.e. "classical" border disputes between nation states, such as were prevalent in Europe up to 1945. The case studies tackled by the Boundary Conflict Study Group at the department of history of Lund University are all related to German revanchism in the interwar period (East Prussia, Teschen, Hultschin, Eupen-Malmedy, Schleswig). But the main emphasis of the paper rather lies in the working out of the epistemological, methodological



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and conceptual premises; an impressive number of theoretical models (many of whom derived from J. Galtung's work) are carefully outlined and discussed: theories of conflict, imperial-ism, minorities, violence, rank, center-periphery, mobilization, perception, polarization, etc.). It is a valiant effort to integrate historical and social-scientific interests, and the overall model developed by the Lund group, although awaiting further testing of its usefulness, seems very plausible. Johansson reports the advancements in an approach that was first presented by the group's coordinator, Sven Tagil, at the first Gorizia conference of 1972.

The same can be said of the next paper, where Franz Heigl brings to further heights of sophistication his theoretical reflec-tions on borders. Among the many differences between the two papers, however, two stand out. Heigl's approach is basically spatial, not historical and it is unfortunate that, for technical reasons, his graphical models had to be left out. The second is its logical-deductive mode of reasoning, very well signaled by the translation of his statements into formal symbolisms of mathematical character; this contrasts nicely with the former group's methodological eclecticism. The comprehension of Heigl's paper is certainly not immediate, it has suffered from a drastic reduction of the original formalisms, that seemed wasted on a readership, like the one for which this volume is intended, probably not trained in that style of reasoning. In a highly personal universe of meanings Heigl deals with the spa-tial differentials in the distribution of infrastructures, popula-tions and resources over space, the effects that on this distribu-tion are likely to emerge subsequent to the imposition or change of boundaries and the different ways the authorities can control the adverse effects and manage border areas, with an eye - generally - towards both spatial equilibrium and security

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from external threats. Niklas Luhmann recapitulates in a succinct statement the

main points concerning territorial and social boundaries. "Boundaries not only separate, they also link"; they are a mechanism of system-environment transactions. In traditional societies, social boundaries usually coincided with territorial boundaries; the ones were a reflection of the others. They marked clearly - although with varying degrees of sharpness - the system from the non-system, "we" from "they". In modern society - which is in effect a world-society - the simple division into internal and external, marked by the territorial borders, is increasingly meaningless. They maintain their relevance for the maintenance of venerable political institutions, but are less and less relevant in many areas of social interaction. Some counter-trends can be noticed, pointing to a re-evaluation of territorial identifications; it is doubtful, however, that they can offset the dominant "reality" of modern "non-territorial" society organi-zation. Luhmann's synthetic remarks may sound somewhat cryptic, due also to the difficulty of translating them into Eng-lish, but they certainly make one wish to go back .to his other essays on the boundaries of social systems.

Raimondo Strassoldo offers yet another analysis of the status of the boundary concept in sociological theory; he ex-plicitly recalls the one he presented, with Renzo Gubert, in the book of proceedings of the earlier Gorizia conference. The pre-sent essay is perhaps less-wide-ranging and more compact than the earlier one; hopefully, it is also more informed and mature. The closed-system paradigm, an inheritance of Greek classical thought, should be discarded drastically from the social sci-ences, as it has been from the physical ones. It leads to platonic and Utopian theories of society; what is worse, it le-gitimizes the nation state as the ultimate form of



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societal organization, thus blocking the road to further evolu-tion towards higher or at least different societal arrangements (such as envisioned by world federalists of various persua-sions). In the history of sociological theories there are alterna-tive views of social organization, such the "cross-cutting of so-cial circles" of Simmel and modern network theory; in neither cases boundaries play relevant roles. However, frontiers and boundaries are also a legitimate and, in some contexts, impor-tant objects of social and historical analysis. Their impact on social evolution has been emphasized by such authors as Turner, and Toynbee; some authors, like G. de Gr-eef and L. Mayhew, have seen in the boundary processes one of the en-gines of social change. In conclusion, the boundary concept seems to be an interesting addition to the sociologist's kit of tools for the understanding of his immensely varied subject matter.

Chad wick F. Alger 's essay weaves together and projects on a global scale, with a wealth of both conceptual and practi-cal motives, all the basic themes of the conference. He criti-cizes the state-centered view that the nation states have suc-ceeded to impress in the minds of ordinary people as well as in the most powerful international institutions; and it reminds viv-idly how, in fact, worldsociety is characterized by the growth of interactions between non-governmental actors. But the growth of institutional worldsociety is accompanied by what seems to be a retreat of people in the more intimate and se-cure context of the local community; a demand for decentrali-zation and more local autonomy seems noticeable all over the world ("small is beautiful"); in the Third World, one hears ever more often the call for "decoupling" and for "self reli-ance". The two processes - toward worldsociety and toward local community - are both important and positive; they

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need to be related so that they can reinforce each other. Alger takes great pains in developing a practical model by which or-dinary people and local groups can become active part of the transnational web of relations ("a world paradigm with local links"; "creating maps for world participation"; "local commu-nities in future worlds"). His model for future worlds is cer-tainly not simple; he anticipates criticisms pointing out some of the advantages it could have on the present, certainly not very satisfactory, state of affairs: 1) the weakening of the main cen-tres of world power; 2) the fulfilment of the claims of local, re-gional minorities that are presently one of the main reasons of unrest and disorder in the world society; 3) the lessening of re-gional imbalances due to the polarization-emargination dual-ism; 4) the improving of the plight of border regions; 5) the preservation of local diversity and the possibility of more symmetrical relations between cultures; 6) the making of self-reliance a more realistic goal.

Alger is well aware, and not ashamed, of the danger of fal-ling into Utopia. Since one of the basic features of Utopian thinking is the negligence of the conditions of transition from the present to the future state, he is careful throughout to pro-vide very concrete "rules of transformation", practical steps toward the preferred world vision. Two such prerequisites are: 1) norms establishing the right to equitable external exchange, and representation in decision making processes that affect lo-cal communities; 2) knowledge and competence that make it possible for local communities to evaluate and make decisions about external relationships. He has thus articulated, at the global level and with the sure hand of a seasoned scholar of in-ternational relations, all the tension towards the overcoming of national boundaries, the growth of local and regional



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autonomies, and the strengthening of the trends toward world-society.

Umberto Gori has been committed the task of drawing a conclusive note to the volume. He brings the attention of the reader back to the centrality of the concept of border and to its heuristic merits, in particular in the field of the social sciences, or sciences of the complexity.

We hope that this book will make a contribution, however modest, to the spread of the visions traced above, which lie at the basis of the Gorizia conference and of the work of the Insti-tute of International Sociology.

Raimondo Strassoldo

Giovanni Delli Zotti

Part I

CROSS-BORDER INTERACTIONS AND STRUCTURES:

CASE STUDIES

TRANSNATIONAL RELATIONS IN A BORDER REGION:

THE CASE OF FR1ULI-VENET1A JULIA

Giovanni Delli Zotti

1. Typologies of Actors and Models in Inter-/Transnational Relations

The international relations, in the classical model, are seen

as bi- or multi-polar interactions of units (the nation-states) that, enacting their autonomous foreign policies, try to take the greater advantage from the international environment. This model of the international system is completed and compli-cated by the presence of alliances and, later, of intergovern-mental organizations (IGOs). But this development does not change fundamentally the classic paradigm because the con-stituent units of these organizations are always nation-states. The metaphor usually employed to describe this model of in-ternational relations is the "billiard-ball model".

In the words of C. Alger: "The 'billiard ball model' long guided research and teach-

ing. It assumes that nation-states are unitary actors in interna-tional systems. It also assumes that nation states are the most important actors, deeming it unnecessary to subject this as-sumption to empirical testing" (1).

This model does not seem to be adequate any

Giovanni Delli Zotti Transnational Relations in a Border Region


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longer to the entire reality of the system of international rela-tions. The major challenges to it come from the increased rele-vance, on the international scene, of some (relatively) new ac-tors. The awareness of the inadequacy of the state-centric para-digm seems to be clear to the many scholars that are dedicating more time and effort to the study of such relevant actors as the multinational corporations, or some international non-governmental organizations (INGOs: e.g. Red Cross Interna-tional and the guerrilla movements of Palestine), and to the de-veloping of new, more comprehensive models. As a first re-mark, it has to be stressed that these new developments lead to a certain obsolescence of the very term "international relations" seeming more appropriate to speak "in the most general sense, of 'global interactions' as movements of information, money, physical objects, people, or other tangible or intangible items across state boundaries" (2).

One very important effort to adequate the theory to the real-ity of these "global interactions" is that of Keohane and Nye. The two authors propose the "world politics paradigm". They start by adding the societal level to the classic model of inter-state politics. They further develop their model taking into ac-count that the actors are not always unitary, thus justifying the choice of the stratifying dimension;

"this second dimension, centralization of control, involves the realization that subunits of governments may also have dis-tinct foreign policies which are not all filtered through the top leadership and which do not fit into a unitary actor model" (3).

The resulting scheme we can see in Figure 1 below, where the two authors identify also the type of interactions that take place between the various couples of actors.

This is a better approximation to a more com-prehensive vision of the global interactions, and

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28 is a step beyond the vision of the "billiard ball model". Some actors are however left out of this model and only a later de-velopment of it by Mansbach, Ferguson and Lampert seems to have reached a more satisfying degree of accuracy. These au-thors break down the category of the transnational organiza-tions into three separate actors labelled as: "governmental non-central", "intrastate nongovernmental" and individuals, while neglecting the distinction in units/subunits (4).

A final development has been that of C.F. Alger, who di-vides the level below the nation state in provincial and city, providing for all the levels (except the individual) the distinc-tion between governmental and non-governmental (5).

Can we say that the process of refinement of the model has reached a satisfactory degree of accuracy and evidence? It could be stated that the process of continuous adding up to fill the gaps found when confronting the models with reality, has brought a certain degree of fuzziness and arbitrariness in the classification.

Instead of trying to make an extra effort to improve the proposed models, it seems more advisable to reconsider what are the most crucial variables and, on the basis of them, to pro-pose a classification.

Firstly, when we speak of actors in inter-trans-national in-teractions most of the time we are confronted with abstract en-tities (governments, nations) or physical objects (cities) that cannot act. These interactions are in fact carried out by indi-viduals who hold a role in the organizations and represent them. Individuals instead can act either as parts of non formalized groups or as single individuals that can have trans-national contacts. Thus it can be proposed that the first classifi-cation of actors will be based on the dichotomy, individ-

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ual/s - organization/s, whereas the second item comprises all the instances where the individuals who act internationally rep-resent not (only) themselves, but a social group, however for-malized.

The second fundamental dichotomy proposed is the exter-nal (international/internal (national) one. It might seem contra-dictory with what has been said up to this point, in particular the stress on the need to break the billiard ball model, to indi-cate as fundamental the border that divides the organizations that are inside from those that are outside the nation-states. It must be reminded anyhow that whatever new important actors we will find, their actions will become relevant only if and when they interact across nation-state borders, whatever our definition of these interactions: international, transnational, transgovernmental, transfrontier, etc.

Thirdly it can be proposed to use in the classification of the actors the above seen governmental/ non-governmental dicho-tomy. This subdivision has to be considered very important since it legitimizes all non-governmental organizations to be considered (relevant) actors in the international interplay.

The resulting scheme shown in Figure 2 below is what could be considered a defensible "hard core" of a classification of actors in global interactions: the last two dichotomies not be-ing, of course, applicable to the individual level.

The proposed classification is not meant to diminish the de-scriptive and heuristic merits of all the further proposed subdi-visions; it is only stated that these are the minimal necessary and sufficient categories that can be employed.

The scheme presented below shows how the relations that occur between all the previously identified actors should be defined. It is based upon the scheme by Keohane and Nye presented above



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31 which was modified to introduce the international non-governmental actors that were not present there (6). The actors are considered unitary, because the differentiation in units/sub-units is not easily applicable to all the actors involved.

In the scope of the present analysis the individuals not for-mally organized can be grouped together with the internal non-governmental actors.

With a close inspection of the scheme it can be noted, first of all, that the interactions that fall in the four cells of the upper left corner and in the four cells of the lower right corner, occur between actors, both governmental and non-governmental. Thus, these interactions can be easily classified alternatively as international or transnational. A problem of classification arises when considering the other two corners, because in these cases the two actors involved are not homogeneous. The solution proposed by Keohane and Nye is that the "lower", non-governmental, actor defines the type of these mixed interac-tions. They are all classified under the transnational label since "at least one actor is not an agent of a government or an inter-governmental organization" (7). An exponent has been put in cells that indicate interactions that occur between actors who are both at the international (governmental and/or non-governmental) level. These interactions might be called, for example, second level international interactions or, following C.F.Alger, super-international interactions (8).

It can be furtherly observed that the cells placed in the de-scending left to right 'diagonal of the scheme indicate interac-tions that occur between actors that are homogeneous accord-ing to both criterion variables" (dichotomies) adopted. The two, lower left and upper right, triangles are specular and hence one of the two is redundant. The redundancy might be eliminated in the case of bilateral interactions



32

adopting the rule that the actors defined in the column variable are those that originated and/or hosted the event-interaction considered. This way the quantity of information that can be input in the matrix would be enhanced.

A final problem arises from the fact that the proposed scheme seems more apt to manage interactions of the bilateral (two actors involved) type. The rule that the lower level (non-governmental) relevant actor participating in the interaction defines it, could any-how be applied also in defining the multilateral interactions.

2. The TRENDS (Transnational Events Network-Data Set) - Methodological Aspects

In the first section we have examined the theoretical

framework where the present research can be situated. The choice has been to study the transnational relations of the Autonomous Region Friuli-Venetia Julia (9). The choice of a region derives from two basic reasons: a recognition of the growing importance of the regions, especially in the process of European integration and in the transfrontier cooperation, and an ideological commitment in studying and stressing the role of the actors other than the nation-state, with their desirable, and possibly real, potential of peace and understanding among peo-ples pertaining sometimes to different cultures and political systems. The region Friuli-Venetia Julia is particularly impor-tant from this point of view because it is a border region. It is placed at the borders of Italy and also of the EEC and, more-over, the neighbouring regions pertain to nation-state that are governed by different political regimes and belong to the two other cultural families present in Europe: the German and the Slavic; F-VJ belonging, in its greatest part, to the Latin one.

33 The choice to stress, in the very title, that the object of

study is the transnational relations derives from the fact that, as it has been said above, the subdivision between international and transnational relations depends on the nature of the actors and, as it can be expected within a region, in particular a region that is non-central in respect of the nation-state, there will be an overwhelming presence of actors, who belong to the sub-na-tional or non-governmental level. This is not true in absolute terms, inasmuch as the state is present through its peripheral organs and the foreign states might be present through their diplomatic representatives.

Some definitions are needed here to point exactly to the matter that has been studied.

As refers a punctual definition of the transnational interac-tions we can cite J.S.Nye:

"we speak of transnational communication, transportation , finance and travel when we refer to nongovernmental or only partially governmental interactions across state boundaries. Thus, transnational interactions is our term to describe the movement of tangible or intangible items across state bounda-ries when at least one actor is not an agent of a governmental or an intergovernmental organization" (1O).

The distinction, instead, between two components of the transnational relations, is quite clearly traced by McClelland and Hoggard that define the event-interactions as:

"single action events of nonroutine, extraordinary or newsworthy character that in some clear sense are directed across national boundaries and have in most instances a specific foreign target" (11).

They distinguish the event-interactions from the transac-tions, the latter being, in their definition:

"items of action that have at some point become so numer-ous, so commonplace, so normal to their situation that they



34 are accounted for conventionally in an aggregate form" (12).

It has been decided to take into consideration all the event-interactions in which at least one actor pertains geographically to Friuli-Venetia Julia. The transactions have been left out of the analysis essentially for one reason: that all the statistics available on import-export of goods and energy, international communication, and movement of tourists are compiled on a national basis and it is not easy, if not impossible, to distin-guish, for example, amongst the goods entering the port of Tri-este, those destined to the Friulian market from those destined to the rest of Italy.

The Transnational Events Network - Data Set has been constructed using as source the local newspaper "Messaggero Veneto". All the events identified as transnational and involv-ing at least one actor that could be geographically located in Friuli-Venetia Julia, were registered on a descriptive file and then coded and punched on cards for the computer processing.

Certain methodological problems arise of which some are common to other similar experiences made in the field of inter-national relations and some are peculiar to the transnational approach.

The choice of the source has been a severe methodological problem for most of the known data banks on international events. The problem arises, for this kind of banks, from the fact that most of them try to record global data for interactions that occur all over the world; while the available sources (Deadline Data, Keesings Contemporary Archives, Fact on File, etc.) are in general unbalanced toward the Anglo-American world, re-porting all, or almost all, of what happens in, and has as actors, the U.S.A. or the U.K. The contribution to international inter-action of other units is thus underestimated.

35 In the case of the present research severe difficulties did not

arise. The source of the data is a regional one, and it is in fact the transnational activity of a region that has to be ascertained.

Time and budgetary limits impede, for the moment, the possibility of using more, mutually integrated, sources. Alter-native sources are indeed available, but each of them presents some problems, so that the choice was to use, at least for the moment, the "Messaggero Veneto" which covers all the region with provincial pages for the time span (1957-1977) of the re-search.

The choice however, was not so crucial in the case of the present research because the most important goal was to show what are the changes over time, more than the absolute figures for a single year. Another strategy employed in reducing the single source disadvantage has been of raising the standards for a piece of news to be considered an event. A local newspaper cannot ignore the important facts of the regional life without losing part of its function.

A problem exists in identifying, i.e. separating, a single event from a series of similar events. To discuss this point it is useful to cite here another definition of event, given by E.E. Azar: "we maintain that an event has five components: actor, target, activity, issue-area, and time. All of these components must exist within the source if an event is to be identified. A discrete event exists only when at least one of the above com-ponents is different from one event to the other" (13).

The presence of the variables (components) cited by the au-thor is considered also in "TRENDS" as conditio sine qua non for an event to be recorded. It has also been decided accord-ingly to consider the modification of at least one of the "cru-cial" variables as an indicator of the presence of another



36

discrete event. This strategy is very useful in solving the prob-lems created by some events of mixed nature that are difficult to code. We can code as two separate events, for example, a ceremonial meeting where political speeches are followed by a sports game between representatives of two twin-cities. This is useful also in solving the problem, explained below, of the "weighting" of the event.

In all known data banks, one of the worst problems to be solved was to give some weight to events that are sometimes very different in their reach, in their "historical" importance, and in the number and amount of resources employed by the actors. Here resources is used latu sensu meaning not only ma-terial, economic, financial resources, but also time, political currency, prestige, etc.

The first thing that can be done in trying to level (to make more comparable) the events is, of course, to exclude from codification "routine events"; which were here defined as transaction. The transactions can be neatly cut out only when we have a clear, operational definition of both events and transactions.

As indicated above, another strategy is of multiplying the events in the presence of a modification in one of the variables that we consider crucial.

A quite useful indicator of the relevance of an event can also be supplied by the number of the participant actors, or by the relevance attributed by the newspaper to the event, meas-ured in terms of space devoted to it.

We have to remind that, when dealing with transnational relations, we do not expect to find events of very different magnitudes together, such as a Marshall plan together with an agreement for the export of a limited quantity of meat.

Much effort has been directed, by the builders of

37

data banks, to the goal of creating some ordinal or, better, in-terval scales to place the events on a continuum, implying an underlying dimension. Most of the time this dimension was the "cooperative-conflictual dimension" (14). But in the interac-tions of transnational type the conflictuality seems to be rarely present almost by definition, and, if we accept this last proposi-tion, a scale constructed along this dimension would be biased towards the cooperative side. We may avoid this difficulty by substituting the conflictual end, with for example a "coopera-tive-competitive dimension". But it is quite difficult even to place the events in this last "continuum", since almost all the events seem to have, at the same time, some cooperative and some competitive characteristics. It seems very difficult to identify the "ideal-type" of a purely cooperative or purely com-petitive event and, in this way, we run the risk of not even be-ing able to provide our scale with the two extremes.

The point put forward in the preceding lines needs to be briefly specified. The impression could be achieved, that it is maintained that conflictuality is not present in the peripheries. This, we know, is not true at all. We could think, for example, of what happened in Trieste in opposition to the Osimo Agreements between Italy and Yugoslavia. There were many reactions to it (even a local political party was created to organ-ize the opposition); these could be interpreted as manifestations of conflictuality towards the Italian Government and, at the same time, towards Yugoslavia. The point is that all these manifestations were unilateral; they happened in Trieste without the participation, at least manifest, of actors from the other side of the border. A target, direct or indirect, could be singled out, but the event-interaction, in this case lacks the in-teractive situation. It could be objected that there was,



38

anyway, a movement across the borders of objects, if not tan-gible, at least intangible (information). In fact, other interna-tional relations data-banks also take into account events of this kind; the option in the present research has been to exclude them (15). This has been done, . because of the practical prob-lems that would arise in trying to identify this kind of event at the source; for example, in every speech of a local political leader there may be references to foreign issues.

3. Analysis of the Research Data Because of the little space available, the analysis of the re-

search data will be conducted without entering into too much detail. It seems wiser, instead, to report completely on the gen-eral findings that emerge from the research.

The years selected to be included in the file have been one out of three starting from 1957. The last year completely avail-able at the time of the survey was 1977 and the fixed interval thus could not be respected. 1976 has been added in the file to include the "year of the two earthquakes" which we consider a test year in particular to verify what was the influence of the pre-established interaction network on the international relief activity following the disaster.

The total number of events recorded has a huge increase during the period of time considered with a peak in 1969. That could be considered a roof, but the data regarding the two last years in the file show another increase only partially justified by the events related to the international relief activity.

In the present research, the two Austrian Lander of Carinthia and Styria and the two federative republics of Slovenia and Croatia are considered

39

transfrontier partners. The interactions with these transfrontier partners can be extracted from the file to make separate analy-ses and comparisons.

These events of the transfrontier type pass from 12 to 29 as a percentage of the total events. This fact can be easily ex-plained mainly with the opening of the frontiers with Yugosla-via in 1955 and the subsequent process of re-connection of in-teraction relations that had been interrupted. This process seems to have reached its stability around 1969; starting from this year the percentages remain virtually constant.

The events/actors ratio is almost constantly increasing over time. This fact shows an increasing complexification in the ag-gregation of the actors. This trend has been confirmed also by the increasing occurrence (in absolute values and as percentage of the total) of multilateral events.

Since there has been ascertained that there are no dramati-cal changes in the distribution of the events per sector of activ-ity during the years considered in the file, we can compare the transfrontier with the rest of the events, just by looking at the total figures (Table 2). The transfrontier type of interactions is composed of a minor share of events involving the cultural and research-education sectors. Very few events involve the mili-tary and the major part of them are restricted to the earthquake relief activity. The diplomatic events, as can be expected, are non existent. The sports events are more present in transfrontier interactions (24% instead of 10%). Also economic events and interactions related to transport and regional planning are per-centually more present at the transfrontier, than at the rest of the transnational level.

From the fact that the political meetings at the transfrontier level weigh more than double when confronted with the political activity at the rest of the transnational



40

41 level, the hypothesis that the interactions of transfrontier part-ners are more purposeful and interesting for our analysis, due to their possible integrating effects, gains more credit.

Another variable in the file, which is closely related to the variable sector, describes the behavioral category of the event. In a preliminary stage of. the research this variable was of the nominal type, coding the labels attributed to the events by the source (concert, economic fair, political meeting, etc.). The variable has been later receded into broader categories which have been ordered along a continuum that goes from a maxi-mum to a minimum of involvement of the lay public, side by side with an increasing purposefulness or degree of operative-ness in the content of the events implied. The categories used in recording the variable are: exhibitions, ceremonial meeting and exchanges, visits and inspections, conferences and "opera-tive" meetings.

The data show a certain stability in the relative importance assumed by the various types of events across time with, once again, a modification due to the earthquakes of 1976. We can note, from the table presented below, where the number of items for the variable sector has been enlarged for descriptive purposes (Table 3), that transfrontier interactions are composed of a relatively major share of sports events, cultural and social ceremonies and exchanges, and meetings of economic actors. Significantly lower is the relative presence of cultural exhibi-tions and economic and political public demonstrations. The other categories do not show important percentage differences.

The foreign partners have been grouped into large politi-cal/economic areas and then closed up to see more in particular the evolution of the interactions in the Alps-Adria region. This has been done, considering only the bilateral events (Table



42

43 4). During the last years the interactions with the neighbouring

states of Austria and Yugoslavia account for almost half the to-tal of bilateral events. The ratio has been much lover in 1957 and the increase is due to the opening of the border with Yugo-slavia. From 1966 these interactions become more frequent than those with Austria. The year of the earthquakes brings a variation even here, but in 1977 the ratio between the two flows is re-established.

As refers the interactions of Friuli-Venetia Julia with the border regions of the Alps-Adria area, we can see that these are much more frequent with bordering Carinthia and Slovenia, as it could be expected. More interesting is to observe that, while the interactions of Friuli-Venetia Julia with Styria appear to be only a part, and sometimes a marginal part, of the interactions with the rest of Austria, in the case of Croatia the number of exchanges is higher then with the rest of Yugoslavia and with Styria too. This could lead to say that the Alps-Adria region, as seen from Friuli-Venetia Julia, is much more a matter of three border regions than of the five here examined, with a possible exception for Croatia.

In the overall absolute growth due to the increase in the number of events, certain types of actors show a trend which is different from the general one. First of all we can notice that there is a relative decline in the presence of the international actors, due to the stagnation at a low level of their presence in absolute values. This finding is contrasted only in 1976, when the earthquake gave certain international organizations the opportunity to be present in Friuli with relief activities. A quite similar pattern is shown by the nation-state actors. Here again the relief activities induced a wider



44

45 presence on the field of this kind of actor.

Inside the group of the international governmental actors we can notice that the role of the provinces has been, and re-mains for a long period of time, almost non significant, with only one exception, again in the earthquake years, since certain powers in directing the relief activities were allocated to these local administrations. It must also be remembered that this ac-tor exists only in the Italian administrative subdivision and that this is another explanation of its reduced presence in the file. The role of the municipal authorities that are present in more than 10% (average) of the events is also stable, but at a much higher level.

The actor "regional government" shows instead a continu-ous growth. This is mainly due to the creation of the Autono-mous Region Friuli-Venetia Julia in 1963. The interactive po-tentialities of this actor do not seem to have reached a roof and might even continue to grow in the future.

The actors of the international non-governmental level have a quite constant presence in the file, accounting for slightly more than 50% of the total. We can look instead at the various components in which this level has been disaggregated. Since in some instances, the percentages refer to a low number of cases, mainly for the first years of the file, and since we do not have the complete time series at hand, we will comment here only on the more evident trends (Table 6).

The parties are present in transnational relations mainly through their representatives elected in the local administra-tions. They are thus present in the file only in a limited number of events as political organizations. The trend is however to-wards an increase of their share.

The economic organizations show a nine year cycle in their level of activity, while industries



46

47 show an increase in their presence, with a peak in 1969 and a relative decline following that date.

The trend of the cultural and musical organizations is to-wards a relative decline in importance. The research institu-tions and schools show, on the contrary, a constant progress towards more involvement in transnational relations.

The individuals are, in general, the 14% of all actors coded, and their share is quite constant over the years. Their percent-age lowers in 1976 and 1977, side by side with the decrease in the presence of the cultural and musical organizations. In fact, in most instances, individuals are the partners of these organi-sations in concerts, conferences and the like.

4. Structural Determinants of the Levels of Interaction So far the analysis has been conducted on a data file that

has, as its unit of analysis, the single event-interaction. It may be conducted, alternatively, having as a unit of analysis the single nation-state with which the region Friuli-Venetia Julia holds transnational relations. The latter path has been followed here, restricting the field to the levels of interaction of Friuli with the European countries.

The new data-file takes the levels of interaction in 1975 and 1977 as dependent variables. A choice of independent variables has been introduced trying to identify which are the best predic-tors, or sources of variation in the dependent ones. The test has been made only for the years 1975 and 1977 since the analysis for all the years in the original file would imply the insertion, also for the independent variables, of the complete time series (at least for



48 those variables that change their values across time). The year 1975 has been inserted both to control whether the correlations are stable over time and to check whether the preceding level of interactions is good as a predictor (1976 was not included because of the accidental variations in the data induced by the earthquakes).

The variables employed as predictors are the following: a) the Gross National Product of each one of the European

nations in 1974 (16); b) the population in 1974 (17); c) the level (sum of imports and exports) of economic ex-

change of the nation considered with Italy in 1974 (18); d) alliances: this variable lists the nation-states along a con-

tinuum representing the international alliances to which the European states belong (from a minimum to a maximum of proximity to the Italian position);

e) the nation-states have been also ordered taking into ac-count the amount of Friulian emigrants present there (1977) (19);

f) proximity: the countries have been also coded consider-ing their spatial proximity to Friuli-Venetia Julia;

g) the last variable entered into the file is the amount of aid (in thousands $) sent to Friuli in occasion of the 1976 earth-quakes (20).

We may now examine the correlation matrix (Pear-son's "r") between the variables described in the foregoing (Table 7). It should be underlined that some continuous, variables have been transformed using logarithms to nor-malize their distribution (21). First it can be noted that the coefficients have only a very limited variation when comparing the correlations with the events occurred in 1975 to those in 1977, so we may tentatively state that, at least in

49



50 the short run, the structural determinants do not have a random influence on the levels of interaction. The correlation between the two levels of interaction is indeed very high (.88). The pre-ceding level of interaction is thus the best predictor, accounting for 77% (r ) of the variance in the dependent variable (interac-tions in 1977). This finding supports the hypothesis that "be-havior causes behavior" (22). Transnational activity seems to be a sufficiently rewarding activity to make the actors continue in interacting (however the concept of social inertia, might also be implied) (23).

Continuing with this simple bi-variate analysis we can note that another strong predictor of the interactive levels is the "import-export" variable. This is not surprising at all if we con-sider that this last variable is a measure of the transactions that are to be placed at the same conceptual level (process level) of the event-interactions, and that the transactions and event-interactions share the same structural determinants.

Another variable strictly correlated to the level of interac-tion in 1977 (and 1975) is the amount of aid delivered to Friuli on the occasion of the two earthquakes of 1976. In order to ex-plain this finding, we can easily use the same arguments which account for the high correlation between event-interactions and economic transaction. The "international aid" variable is in fact of the same nature as the other two. This fact is also corrobo-rated by international aid being well correlated even with the economic transactions of Italy (.47). This level of correlation may be considered high, especially if we take into account that the international aid was delivered precisely to Friuli; the im-port-export is instead measured on a national basis.

The difference in the correlation of the international aid with the events occurred during the year

51

preceding the earthquakes (.65) and those happened in 1977 (.73) also needs to be explained. The long -kept habit of having transnational relations with Friuli-Venetia Julia probably in-duced in the partners a positive attitude that was expressed in remarkable effort in undertaking solidarity initiatives. This fact has been rewarding for the actors who continued these initia-tives, later expanded to other sectors and levels of the transna-tional activity as well.

The levels of interaction are also positively correlated with the Gross National Product and the population of the European countries included in the file. The more populated and the richer a country, the more likely frequent interactions with it. More population means in fact more potential collective part-ners (governmental or not) to interact with. Since interactions mean costly displacement of persons across the territory, the richer a country is, the more actors will be present that can af-ford the costs implied in being involved in transnational activi-ties. These costs are of course lower for the neighbouring ac-tors and this is why (together with other reasons of cultural and historical nature) the "proximity" variable too is highly corre-lated with the levels of interaction.

This is true to the point that this geographical determinant even succeeds in overwhelming the variable "alliances", whose relation with the event-interactions is nil even though it was expected to be correlated. Friuli-Venetia Julia is positioned at the eastern border of NATO, but this does not prevent it in any way from having significant relations with partners that are outside the alliance (Yugoslavia in particular, but also the other communist countries). The pure geographical determinism, at the level of transnational relations, is stronger than the bounda-ries imposed by the artificial geopolitical sub-divisions of the world.



52 The "emigration" variable is correlated well with the event-

interactions, but also with most of the other variables in the file, so that its influence on the levels of interaction, although existing and not negligible, is partially indirect or spurious.

The discussion led up to now may be summarized by a scattergram where the countries have been plotted according to two variables: level of interaction in 1977 and Gross National Product. The two variables are represented using logarithmic scales to permit an easier visualization: otherwise most of the dots would be concentrated in the lower left side of the scatter-gram thus impeding their distinction (Figure A). The strong re-lationship between the variables is shown by the position of most countries quite close to the regression line. The countries that lie above it have a frequency of interactions higher than that "predicted" by the G.N.P. Among them we find the coun-tries grouped in area 1: all of them are occidental countries, geographically very close to Friuli-Venetia Julia and also good economic partners of Italy. Also, some of the countries in the communist field (area 2) lie above or on the regression line for the reasons explored above. The fact that geographical distance penalizes, other things being equal, the likelihood of having transnational relations, is confirmed by the group of the Scan-dinavian countries (area 3) that lies entirely below the regres-sion line.

This simple bi-variate analysis of the data has given a certain insight into the independent variables that may be useful in ex-plaining the levels of interaction. We have noted, however, that several relations between the variables, while interesting for analysis at this preliminary stage, are spurious; indeed they share the same sources of variation. Before proceeding to a multivariate analysis of the data, it has been decided to eliminate the variables

53



54 on trade, international aid and level of interaction in 1975.

The result of the multiple regression of the surviving vari-ables on the level of interaction in 1977 is that, with only five independent variables, a multiple R of .84 is achieved, meaning that 70% of the variance is explained (Table 8). The parsimony of the model is even accentuated if we consider that two vari-ables: G.N.P. and vicinity, take an overwhelming role, explain-ing alone 69% of the variance. The single "r" for the population and alliances variables is comparably high, but that . correla-tion is, for its most part, spurious since it almost vanishes if we apply the multiple regression technique. It has to be pointed out that the opposite would happen if, for instance, the population was entered in the regression equation before the G.N.P. In this case very little of the total variance would have to be explained by G.N.P. Most important is that we do not need both in the model, and G.N.P. is slightly better.

The finding that comes out of the multiple regression per-fectly fits into the s.c. "gravity model", deriving from the new-tonian theory, and applied to the social sciences by the geogra-phers (24). Using this model the size of flows between two re-gions can be estimated using the masses, and the distance di-viding the two regions. In our case the mass is measured in terms of G.N.P. and the distance by the variable "vicinity". Our ability to "measure" social phenomena is far from being as ac-curate as in the physical sciences, however, it must be stated that the reduction of the unexplained variance to 30% by means of just two variables is to be considered a good result.

55

5. Summary of Findings Several findings emerged from the research that might be

proposed as general falsifiable hypotheses. Some of them are of a more general reach others are more linked to the particular role of frontier region held by Friuli-Venetia Julia.

1. Levels of interaction. 1.1 After a period of border closure, or opposition to the

normal pattern of interaction due to external causes, the rela-tions between two actors tend to be re-established, gradually increasing their occurrence.

1.2 A roof is reached after an estimated period of ten to twelve years starting from the opening of the border.

1.3 A roof is reached because there is a limit to the interac-tive potentialities of the actors. This roof may however be lifted up or down, due to major structural changes or due to ex-ceptional occurrences (Osimo, earthquake).

1.4. There is a difference in the outcome induced by these two types of changes. While the structural changes in the envi-ronment tend to have long-run effects, and to develop them slowly, the sudden discontinuities produce different outcomes. Their effect is immediately perceivable, reaching the full de-velopment of their influence in a short period of time. After this peak, there is a comparable, but less immediate, decay.

1.5 The levels of interaction with the transnational partners are strictly correlated with the economic transactions, since they share the same set of structural determinants.

1.6 The best predictors of the levels of interactions between two selected partners are: the relative masses (measurable in terms of population or, better, G.N.P.) and the relative geographical prox-imity. The levels of interaction can thus be described in terms



56

of a "gravity model". 1.7 One can ascertain an overall tendency towards an in-

creasing complexification of the event-interactions revealed by the increased number of multilateral events and by an increased participants/events ratio.

1.8 A percentual decrease of the exhibitions and a parallel slight increase in the operative meetings present in the data-file can be noted. The hypothesis of an increasing complexification of the events gains more credit worthy, since more "weighty" issues are introduced in the transnational interplay.

2. Role of the actors. 2.1 A relative decline in the presence of the international

actors, regardless of the creation and the development of the EEC has been ascertained.

2.2 The role of the nation-state governmental actors in transnational interactions i-s quite marginal, declining over time, and is mostly restricted to a side-presence in the events.

2.3 The role of the local (non central) public administra-tions is constantly growing, especially after the creation of the Autonomous Friuli-Venetia Julia Region.

2.4 The intranational governmental and non-governmental actors are the most active in transnational interactions. This is particularly true when looking at the distribution of the actors who are the organizers or hosts. Here their presence (especially the regional and city governments, but voluntary organizations too) is even accentuated.

2.5 The slight relative decline of the bilateral interactions with actors in the EEC countries, the stagnation of the process of town twinning and the opposite growth of bilateral interac-tions with bordering, especially Yugoslavian, actors, suggest the hypothesis that Friuli-Venetia Julia is more inclined to fulfil the role of a bridge towards East, than of an

57

active actor in a "Europe of the Regions" perspective. 2.6 The overwhelming number of bilateral transfrontier in-

teractions occurs between actors that are homogeneous in our functional classification. With the increase in the dis homoge-neity or distance of the actors on the scale, the occurrence of interactions is drastically reduced.

2.7 The research has ascertained an over time tendency to-wards a decreasing importance of the capital city of the region in favour of the other provincial centers and, in general, a more than proportional increase in the activities of the smaller cen-ters placed in the hinterlands.

2.8 The relative decline of Trieste (the capital town of the region) is more evident in the sectors where it formerly had the leadership: culture and economy. However Trieste maintains a relative political leadership due especially to the presence of the Regional headquarters.

2.9 In general, the towns are ahead of their hinterlands in political leadership and as diffusers of culture.

2.10 The cities of the region are more long-distance ori-ented than their hinterlands in their transnational interactions. This is not true for the classical border-town of Gorizia.

3. Transfrontier interactions. 3.1 The transfrontier sub-species of transnational inter-

actions reveal an even more accentuated complexity over time (in terms of growth of multilateral events and in-creased participants/events ratio) and, moreover, they are more mutually involving and purposeful. This last finding is shown by the predominance of the bilateral and multilat-eral type of event-interactions against the "organizer-participant(s)".

3.2 Transfrontier interactions also reveal more



58

purposefulness and greater relevance in the "behavioral cate-gory" variable. There are no dramatic differences when com-paring them with the rest of the transnational events, but a rela-tively more than proportional presence of meetings, visits and inspections, paralleled by a less then proportional presence of mere exhibitions, can be ascertained.

3.3 Symmetrical interactions (between actors of the same functional level) are even more present in the transfrontier rela-tions.

3.4 In the context of the Alps-Adria transfrontier region, contacts are more likely with the closer partners. Also the mul-tilateral events are, in most instances, a matter of the three bor-dering regions: Friuli-Venetia Julia, Carinthia and Slovenia.

3.5 Also, the disaggregation of the events by the four prov-inces reveals that the interactions are more frequent with the interface partners. This is not true, as it has been already seen, for the stronger centers that are less geographically determined in their preferences.

3.6 In the case of the reconnection of contacts with Yugo-slavia at the transnational level, which were formerly inter-rupted, the first actors to move were those belonging to the in-tranational non-governmental level (the non-official ones). The economic sector came first, followed by the cultural and social one and, last, the political sector.

NOTES 1. C.F. Alger, 'The Impact of Cities on International Systems', paper pre-

sented at the X IPSA Congress, Edinburgh, 1976, p.3. 2. R.V, Keohane, J.S. Nye, Transnational Relations and World Politics,

Cambridge, Harward University Press, 1970, p. XXIV. 3. R.V. Keohane, J.S. Nye, op. cit. 4. R.W. Mansbach, Y.H. Ferguson, D,F. Lampert, The Web of World Poli-

tics, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1976, p. 3.

59 5. C.F. Alger, op. cit. 6. See Figure 1, by R.V. Keohane, J.S.Nye, op. cit., p. 732. 7. R.V. Keohane, H.S. Nye, op. cit., p. XII. 8. C.F. Alger, Participation of Local Communities in Building future Worlds,

in this volume. 9. For reasons of brevity hereafter the Region Friuli-Venetia Julia, will be

sometimes simply called Friuli or F-VJ. 10. R.V. Keohane, J.S. Nye op. cit., p. XII, 11. C.A. McClelland, G. Hoggard, 'Conflict Patterns in the Interactions

Among Nations' , in: J.H. Rosenau (ed.), International politics and Foreign Policy, New York, Free Press, 1969, p. 713.

12. C.A. McClelland, G. Hoggard, op. cit., p. 713. 13. E.E. Azar et al., International Events Interaction Analysis: Some Research

Considerations, Beverly Hills, California, Sage International Studies Series, 1972. 14. F. Attina, 'La banca degli eventi internazionali europei: il formato dell'e-

vento e le caratteristiche dei dati rilevati', in: U. Gori, 0. Onori (eds.), Tecniche di analisi per le decisioni politiche ed economiche, Milano, Angeli, 1980, p. 341. See also most of the data banks cited in P.M. Burgess, R.W. Lawton, Indicators of Inter-national Behavior: an Assessment of Events Data Research, Beverly Hills, Califor-nia, Sage - International Studies Series, 1972.

15. P.M Burgess, R.W. Lawton, op. cit. 16. Statistical Yearbook 1974, New York, United Nations, 1975. 17. Ibidem. 18. The European countries have been classified on an interval scale based on

the original figures public bed in: Yearbook of International Trade Statistics - 1977, vol. 1, Trade by Country, New York, United Nations, 1978.

19. Aspetti e problemi dell'emigrazione italiana all'estero nel 1977, Roma, MAE: Ministero Affari Esteri, 1978, tav. 4a.

20. The complete figures have been published in G. Delli Zotti, 'La solidarietà internazionale', in: R. Strassoldo, B. Cattarinussi (eds.), Friuli: la prova del terremo-to, Milano, Angeli, 1978.

21. For the legitimity and opportunity of performing such variable transforma-tion, see among others: L. Perrone, Metodi quantitativi della ricerca sociale, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1977-

22. This statement has been provided by one of the researchers involved in the Dimensionality of Nations Project. See: W. Phillips, 'A Mathematical Theory of Conflict Dynamics' , DON Research Report n. 39, University of Ha way, 1970. The results of the analysis, discussed below do not contradict, however, the seemingly opposite, possibly complementary, statement that: "Attributes cause behaviors", which is at the basis of the philosophy of the DON Project. This aspects are thoroughly discussed in G. Hilton, A Review of the Dimensionality of Nations Project, Beverly Hills, Sage, 1973.

23. For the concept of social inertia see, among others, W. Catton Jr., From Animistic to Naturalistic Sociology, New York, McGraw Hill,



60 1966. 24. "The gravity model" has been widely used, for example, in regional analy-

sis. See W. Isard, Methods of Regional Analysis, Cambridge, The MIT Press Mass., I960.


NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Chadwick F. ALGER, Mershon Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He published widely on the impact of the UN on intergovern-mental communication, on intergovernmental decision-making, on the socialization of UN participants and on the theory of in-ternational relations. In 1972 he developed the "Columbus in the World: the World in Columbus" project. He is a former president of the International Studies Association.

Malcolm ANDERSON, Professor and Head of Department of Politics, Director of the Centre of European Governmental Studies, University of Edinburgh. Previously lecturer in gov-ernment, University of Manchester, Research Fellow at Institut National des Sciences Politiques in Paris, Professor of Politics, University of Warwick. Author of books and articles on French politics, economic policy and the politics of frontiers and boundaries.

Gommar van der AUWERA, Responsible for the division "Gestion financiere et controles" at the general direction for the regional policy at the European Communities Commission. He is author of a number of publications on the problems of re-gional policy.

Andrea CHIT1-BATTELLI, Exponent of the European Feder-alist Movement, Formerly Secretary of the Italian Parliamen-tary delegations at the European Assemblies. He is author of various publications on mass-media and European society, the European political union, the powers of the European Parlia-ment, etc.


Giovanni DELLI ZOTTI, Researcher of the I.S.I.G. (Institute of International Sociology of Gorizia). Formerly researcher of the European University Institute, Florence. He has published on the system of international aid in disasters and is currently making research on transfrontier cooperation.

Umberto GORI, Professor of International Relations in the Faculty of Political Sciences "Cesare Alfieri". He is also Direc-tor of the Institute of Political Science in the University of Florence, as well as Director of the Centro Analisi Relazioni Internazionali (C.A.R.I.).

Franz HEIGL, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Innsbruck. He has published many scientific articles and books.

Jean-Pierre JARDEL, Director of the Centre d'Etudes des Civi-lizations at the Institut Europeen des Hautes Etudes Interna-tionales of Nice. He is giving courses in sociology at the Uni-versity of Nice.

Rune JOHANSSON, has since 1970 been a member of the Boundary Project at the Department of History, University of Lund, Sweden. He has worked at the Swedish Secretariat for Future Studies and is co-author of a book on Sweden in the World Society.

Vladimir KLEMENCIC, Professor of Geography at the Phi-losophy Faculty, Edvard Kardelj University of Ljubljana. For-merly the Director of the Institute of Geography at the same University. His area of concentration has been the question of open borders, border regions, and the function of national mi-norities in international cooperation and in social development.

Niklas LUHMANN, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Among the numerous works he has published on the theory of society and the juridical system; the last works published in English translations are: Trust and Power (1979) and The Differentiation of Society (1980).

Ivo PIRY, Research fellow at the Institute of Geography at Ed-vard Kardelj University of Ljubljana. His main field of interest is research on regional development and border regions.

Jean REVEL-MOUROZ, Researcher at the CNRS and profes-sor at the Institute des Hautes Etudes de l'Amerique Latine, Paris. He is directing a group of the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Amerique Latine (CREDAL) concerned with planning and a programme on the role of border areas and free zones in a new international division of labour.

Charles RICQ, Assistant and teacher at the Sociology Depart-ment of the University of Geneva. He is also researcher and teacher at the Institut Universitaire d'Etudes Europeennes of Geneva. Transfrontier regions, regional and social policy in Europe are his main fields of interest. He is expert-consultant of the Council of Europe and of the European Communities.

Raimondo STRASSOLDO, Professor of Urban and Rural So-ciology at the Political Science Faculty of the University of Trieste. Former director of the Institute of International Sociol-ogy of Gorizia (ISIG). Consultant to the Friuli-Venezia Jiulia region on cross-frontier cooperation.

Delli Zotti 1982 Transnational Relations of a Border Region: the Case of Friuli-Venetia Julia

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