Border Markets and the Country’s Political Border Security (Case Study: Jolfa Border Market)

Border trade is one of the main indicators in establishing relationship between neighboring countries and also earning a living among frontiersmen; through this, the people living in the border areas of neighboring countries can get the advantage of the shared opportunities and resources. This can lead to continuity, stability, friendship and mutual understanding in population stabilization of the frontier zones, providing job opportunities and security, economic development and the formation of a relative advantage in the border areas. In spite of the existing capacities and capabilities in border areas, one of the main features of these regions is being far away from the center of the country. This geographic problem which is mainly driven from border regions’ nature, and this distance in terms of non-land use and centeredness-orientation policies have unpleasant consequences for the border regions that the most important one is their intense privation and being marginal which in turn provides the military, security, political, and social problems. This study, using a combinational pattern than forms the theoretical framework of this study, has addressed the analysis of economic effects of border markets on political border security development of the country. Based on this, Jolfa border market in the northwest of the country (East Azerbaijan) has been selected as the case study for its strategic and geopolitical situations, for being the entrance gate and the communicative bridge of Iran and Europe, and for getting the effect of Pan Turk ethnic movements and geographic characteristics. This study is of an applied research type and in terms of methodology it is descriptive that has been conducted in library and field study method. The data were collected using the interview and questionnaire. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS software. The security and economic consequences and the obtained results indicate that the Jolfa border market could have acceptable effects on relative security and also frontiersmen population stability of the region in the political borders in the northwest of the country. Finally, some guidelines and suggestions have been presented in this regard.