Recent studies of international relationships among nations have focused on political aspects of interactions. This emphasis has produced a rich set of new insights, but it has not been complemented by an equally productive set of inquiries into the geographic dimensions of international conflict and cooperation. Essentially unanswered have been a number of crucial questions, such as How does the geographic context within which nations operate affect their relationships?, To what extent do spatial attributes within nations affect their relationships with other nations?, and How do the relative similarities and differences among nations affect bilateral relationships and the collective interactions of groups of nations within regions? This collaborative research project will address these and related questions by applying new methods of spatial analysis to a comprehensive database containing information about 120 nations between 1948 and 1988. Matrix-associative methods will be used to develop dynamic measures of state attributes, spatial heterogeneity, and spatial dependence; these measures will form the basis of a general model of post-World War II international behavior. The model will be validated through analysis of the development of regional alliances, identification of "shatterbelt" areas of high international tension, examination of different forms of economic interdependence, and investigation of regions of intense security-related activity. This project will benefit geographers, political scientists, and other scientists interested in the complex processes of international relationships in two ways. Conceptual understandings will be enhanced because the research will demonstrate the integral and complementary nature of spatial analysis as a means of investigating conflict and cooperation among nations. The project's empirical contribution will also be significant, because it will exhibit and expand the use of a rich new database. The implications of both types of contributions for persons directly involved in the development of international policies also will be significant.
