Democratic Borders

Why is it that borders almost only change through war? Isn’t that particularly uncivilized? It is long overdue that democratic borders become part of international law and liberal democracy. How should border changes be determined? It should be recognized as a natural right that every language demographically large enough with its own territory be given the right to form its own state or micro-state. Linguistic states were invented in India in the 1950’s although the Indian federal subjects that have been created in recent decades have not been linguistic states. Linguistic states should be the starting point, however the end result through democratic process may well turn out differently in many locations. E.g. would any given Palestinian village for economic reasons elect to remain/become part of Israel if communally given the choice despite Palestinian nationalist rhetoric. How should border changes be decided? A referendum can be held in an entire border region and/or in a specific border village. The European Union should follow the example of India and allow both border changes and the creation of new member states in its territory through democratic processes only. African states should become federations of linguistic states on the model of Ethiopia and allow changes of internal borders between federal subjects as well as creation of new independent states through democratic process only. There are a number of multi-linguistic regions around the world (e.g. Dagestan) where many small languages are concentrated and such a region should become a confederation of linguistic cantons or as otherwise decided by the local populations through democratic process. However, two conditions must be fulfilled before borders change between two existing states; a) the population of the border region/area must agree and b) the state which they join must also provide consent.