ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a series of case studies that focus on the interplay among the newly developing border institutions, local people and the networks of cooperation, and their associated identities. It deals with several inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including: the cross-border bazaars and the recently built bridges, the training of border personnel and border infrastructural development. Currently most infrastructure development schemes focus on the formalization of border institutions, but the majority of the interactions and transactions continue to occur in the underlying informal agreements. Participating in development projects with some international organizations helped highlight the roles that stakeholders, local, national, and international, play along the border and how local and informal agreements trump formal institutions and rules. The internationals seemed aware that both the official institutions of the state as well as the locals and their associated groups held sway at the border.
