Border configuration compactness as a territorial ambition of states

This dissertation explores the concept of border configuration compactness and the relative priority states in the international system attach to it vis-a-vis other traditional territorial ambitions. In doing so, it broadens the discipline's understanding of the role spatial geopolitical variables play in international relations, expands the array of theoretical and methodological tools available to the discipline, and vindicates the early efforts of quantitative research pioneer Lewis Fry Richardson's interest in the concept.; The literature on border compactness is reviewed and a set of theoretical propositions is extrapolated. Two main propositions are tested in the dissertation: (1) whether countries tend to territorially expand in directions that increase the configuration compactness of their borders, and, (2) whether victors in a war tend to inflict a "compactness penalty" on the loser's borders in order to achieve a relative geopolitical advantage in anticipation of future conflict.; A case study analysis is made of the territorial border changes experienced by both Israel and Germany during the twentieth century. Attention is focused on the relative priority that the states attached to achieving a geometrically compact configuration for their international borders. The study finds strong evidence that, on occasion, states do attach high priority to border configuration compactness, sometimes a primary one. Evidence is also found supporting the "compactness penalty" proposition.; Geographic Information Systems (G.I.S.) technology is then used to digitize maps and measure precisely the size and configuration of each of the territorial stages analyzed in the case study analysis. Two formulae based on competing interpretations of territorial compactness are then applied to the data in a quantitative test of comparative explanatory power. Both formulae produce results confirming the two main compactness propositions, Richardson's perimeter/area ratio formula proving especially useful.; G.I.S. is also applied to maps of eastern European countries during the late-Cold War period in order to quantitatively measure the spatial congruence of national borders with various areas of ethnic predominance. The resultant data indicate that this methodology has great promise in predicting the intensity and locus of future ethnic conflict and/or the political dissolution of multicultural states.