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Description
Man, this was harder than it should have been.

EDIT:

This tutorial has been OBSOLETED by an idea and method that grew out of that idea.

This method doesn't use insetting, but instead relies on .svg clipping and masking methods.

Take the country outline.
Duplicate.
Combine the outline with a large rectangle so that you have a "counter-outline".
Give the counter-outline a blurry and thick border.
Clip these two together (it matters which one's on top): you have a blurry border wiz ze one side clipped orf. The same effect as the inset-blank-blur method, except it's generated from the clipping, and doesn't require any transformations on the original outline, which is a really big plus: Inkscape's inline functionalities tend to be a bit lacking, and often create 'artefacting' and stuff like that.

Description
Man, this was harder than it should have been.

EDIT:

This tutorial has been OBSOLETED by an idea and method that grew out of that idea.

This method doesn't use insetting, but instead relies on .svg clipping and masking methods.

Take the country outline.
Duplicate.
Combine the outline with a large rectangle so that you have a "counter-outline".
Give the counter-outline a blurry and thick border.
Clip these two together (it matters which one's on top): you have a blurry border wiz ze one side clipped orf. The same effect as the inset-blank-blur method, except it's generated from the clipping, and doesn't require any transformations on the original outline, which is a really big plus: Inkscape's inline functionalities tend to be a bit lacking, and often create 'artefacting' and stuff like that.