The Analysis of Geopolitics: Reconceptualizing International Borders through the Application of GIS (Geographic Information Systems)

在过去的15年里，地理学在国际关系研究中的作用和影响再次受到关注。这在很大程度上与“新地缘政治”有关：它将地理视为外交政策决策者所面临的可能性和制约因素的重要组成部分。基于早期概念化和描述国际边界的工作，该项目试图建立一个主要的重新概念化和修订如何看待边界（理论）和测量（方法）。地理信息系统（GIS）的使用允许在机会和意愿方面对边界的具体性质进行操作，从而可以更充分和更清楚地说明边界：分别是易于相互作用和显著性。利用ARC/INFO世界数字图表中数据层中的可用数据，构建了易于交互和显著性的指标。这些索引汇总了ARC/INFO生成的值。它们可以用来描述地球上的任何边界（或弧）或边界段。因此，GIS数据集的使用允许一种新的机制来操作一个州的边界。通过生成的索引，可以将值附加到边界或边界段提供的交互便利性，和/或任何特定边界或边界段的重要性。这两个维度可以单独使用，也可以组合使用。两个值都很高的边界可以被认为是“重要边界”。GIS生成的索引允许调查人员利用这两个维度，并根据正在考虑的研究单独或组合使用它们。这种基于理论的重新概念化将导致数据集的创建，这将允许研究超越简单地观察一个州拥有的边界数量，无论两个州之间是否存在边界，或者边界的长度。即将产生的数据集应引起国际关系、地理和区域科学领域众多学者的兴趣。

Over the past 15 years there has been a renewed attention to the role and impact of geography in the study of international relations. Much of this is related to the `new geopolitics: which treats geography as an essential part of the context of possibilities and constraints that face foreign policy decision makers. Based on earlier work which conceptualized and described international borders, this projects seeks to establish a major reconceptualization and revision of how borders may be seen (theory) and measured (method). The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) permits a much fuller and clearer specification of borders by allowing an operationalization of the specific qualities of borders in terms of opportunity and willingness: ease of interaction and salience, respectively. Using data available in the data layers found in ARC/INFO's Digital chart of the world, indexes of both ease of interaction and of salience have been constructed. These indexes aggregate values generated from ARC/INFO. they can be used to characterize any border (or arc) or border segment on the globe. thus, the use of a GIS dataset permits a new mechanism for operationalizing a state's borders. Through the indexes generated, values can be attached to the ease of interaction a border or border segment provides, and/or the importance of any particular border or border segment. These two dimensions can be used separately or combined. A border with high values on both could be considered a `Vital Border.` The GIS generated indexes permit investigators to tap both dimensions, and to use them singly or combined given the research under consideration. This theoretically based reconceptualization will lead to the creation of a dataset which will permit research to go beyond simply observing the number of borders a state possesses, whether or not a border existed between two states, or the length of that border. The dataset to be produced should be of interest to numerous scholars in international relations and geography and regional science.