Harvard study gives support for Pridnestrovie statehood

Map of Pridnestrovie: As squiggly as it gets ... and, says Harvard, the best proof of statehood viability

CAMBRIDGE (Tiraspol Times) - Based on the new academic concept of "squiggliness," Pridnestrovie - also known as Transnistria - has one of the world's best claims to statehood. Over time, so-called "squiggly borders" determine whether or not a country has viability as a sovereign, independent state. That is the conclusion of a recent paper - "Artifical States" - published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The paper's approach is not the traditional political or diplomatic one. Rather, it is based on maps and geometry; angles and lines.

Scholars Alberto Alesina and Janina Matuszeski of Harvard University and William Easterly at New York University divided countries into two categories: natural and artificial. A natural state is one defined by ethnicity and geographic features such as rivers like the Dniester river, for more than two thousands years the border between Slavic and Dacian (Romanian) lands and today the border separating Pridnestrovie and Moldova. Natural national borders would tend to be bumpy.

The map of an artificial state by contrast looks like it was drawn with a ruler, which it often was. Its straight borders sometimes partition ethnic communities, placing them in two countries. Other times, they place groups that are hostile to one another in the same nation; as two of history's most brutal dictators, Hitler and Stalin, did on the eve of World War II. Their infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which brought Pridnestrovie and Moldova together in a forced and unnatural marriage, was later denounced by Moldova as being null and void. At no prior time in history was Pridnestrovie ever part of Romania or Moldova.

Most nations have borders that are a combination of lines and bumps, so the authors developed a mathematical measure to quantify the extent of border bumpiness, which they called squiggliness. Since borders on oceans are extremely squiggly, the authors controlled for that and studied only the squiggliness of national borders with other nations, including river-based borders such as that of the Dniester which historically has marked the farthest reach of Moldova. Their thesis is that it is better to be natural than artificial, and that squiggliness is good for growth and stability.

Luxembourg, with borders similar to PMR, tops the list

The data bear that out. The squiggliest country out of 144 studied turns out to be Luxembourg, one of the most stable countries in Europe and a founding member of the United Nations. Pridnestrovie has a size of 4,163 square km, nearly twice the size of Luxembourg (2,586 km²), and a comparison of the two small countries' maps clearly show who has the bumpiest borders of the two. For 2007, Pridnestrovie will be included in a follow-up study by independent scholars, aiming to include not just all 192 U.N. members but also nearly twenty non-U.N. members, autonomous regions and de facto states ranging from Kosovo and PMR in Europe to Somaliland and Southern Sudan in Africa.

Slovenia is No. 3; a country which after it was allowed to pursue its claim to independence is indeed one of the calmer of the new nations to emerge since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. Switzerland, the classic mountain country, comes in fourth.

The less squiggly countries prove more problematic. The least squiggly nation in the world is Papua New Guinea, the site of chronic and violent feuds. Saudi Arabia is right down there with a squiggliness rank of 143. Somalia and Libya are 142 and 141. Iraq is 110. Iran is 86. Less squiggly countries, the scholars found, generally have lower income, worse public services and higher infant mortality rates. They also found that social unrest, the sort that leads to wars, was also more frequent in unsquiggly places. The net finding, says Alesina, is that artificiality is "correlated with bad stuff."

There are outliers, to be sure. The U.S. and Canada, as stable as they come, have long straight borders and low rankings.
" - Here the situation is different," Matuszeski says, for "a key factor is when the border is drawn." If it is drawn before settlers came - as was the case in the near-empty New World - then trouble is less likely. Bringing two unwilling partners together today, as Moldova wants to do with Pridnestrovie, is a recipe for trouble and sure to keep both of them mired in poverty for as long as the unlikely marriage might last.

Lesson of history: "Respect nationality"

" - The lesson of history is respect nationality," professor Easterly says. And here, Pridnestrovie and Moldova are as different as night and day. In Moldova, a full 78% are Moldovans and Romanians. In Pridnestrovie, they number less than a third. The opposite is the case with Slavs. In Moldova, according to the 2004 census, they represent a small minority of just 14% of the population. By contrast, in Pridnestrovie, they make up nearly two-thirds and have historically - for more than two thousand years - been the most numerous inhabitants of the area.

" - Bring these two different societies together by force, against the wish of the affected population? That's nuts. It is a recipe for future failure just waiting to happen", says civil society activist Petru Gladchi. The 555,347 citizens of Pridnestrovie are approximately two-thirds Slav and one-third ethnic Moldovan. However, as an indepth study by the Washington, D.C.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace unveiled, even ethnic Moldovans in the country prefer independence by an overwhelming margin, respect the historical border at the Dniester river and have no wish to join their brothers in Moldova. Many of the country's leading pro-independence politicians are ethnic Moldovans.

For 2007, professor Easterly and his partners are looking at nationality in a new and expanded study on wars and squiggliness.

According to Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes, this could yield a policy of super-Wilsonianism; using squiggliness as pretext for advocating sovereignty for every tiny tribe. But, says Shlaes, "you don't have to subscribe to this or any other extreme plan to take comfort in the existence of this new non-emotional, non-political meter of conflict. War is spreading so fast across the globe that we need to look at it from every angle, including the squiggly one."

As far as conflict resolution between Chisinau and Tiraspol is concerned, the new study solidly gives academic support to the independence argument of Tiraspol: Respect the Dniester as the historical border which for centuries have separated the two lands. The squiggly factor, a seriously researched indicator for future peace and stability in Europe, is the key to avoiding war, conflict and unnecessary loss of lives.

Pridnestrovie has its own defined territory, with over 500 miles of international borders. The unrecognized country exercises exclusive jurisdiction, coinage and taxation and its own governance over borders, schools, courts of law, pensions, health, ecology, and a state built network of gasification.

Want to see just how squiggly Pridnestrovie really is? Click on the map which illustrates this article and which looks like one of the extreme gerrymandered election districts in the deepest south of Texas. A map like this is - according to the new study by Harvard's scholars - irrefutable proof that on a scale of countries most likely to succeed, Pridnestrovie (or Transnistria as it is also known) actually has one of the best claims to statehood in the world.

The publisher of the study, National Bureau for Economic Research, is the largest economics research organization in the United States. Sixteen of the 31 American winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics have been NBER associates, as well as three of the past Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers, including the current NBER president, Martin Feldstein. It was founded in 1920. (With information from Bloomberg).