Transformative ICT Developments, Border Conflicts and Qualitative Methods

Transformative ICT's influence on international politics is analyzed in this paper. A qualitative methods idea for researching current border conflicts is presented. The information economy is presented as a significant influence on everything happening in the world today. The issue that has much importance for border conflict is the rate at which ICT is becoming more pervasive. Always seen as a metamorphosis influence from technology to other fields, pervasive ICT is having an even more influential reason now. As ICT becomes an idea all people use, the influence of the phenomena continues to increase. Now everyone uses three or four different interconnected devices. The number of different ICT devices in use by each person is continually increasing. ICT does not always prove an enlightening influence. Sometimes the negative externalities are so great that conflict happens. Border conflicts are explained in terms of rational decisions by people across the border. Over the centuries, conflicted often occurs along borders where there is disparity of power between protagonists across a border. In some instances, the weaker state has been aggrandized by the stronger one. Instances exist where perception of strength has been determinant. Erroneous perceptions that the adjacent state is weak, also, leads to conflict. Instances exist where conflict occurs irrationally because of ideological, religious, and other cultural reasons. Predominantly, however, border conflict is explained using a rational choice model. Political leaders across the border simply decide to initiate conflict with the expectation of making economic gains. Qualitative methods offers authentic possibilities for gaining knowledge and better understanding current border conflicts. The paper uses the examples of tension along the North Korean borders and the present situation between Ukraine and Russia in discussing border conflict. Both conflicts are seen as analyzable with the rational choice model of border conflicts that has been presented. Using qualitative methods that combine performance ethnography and narrative, the issue of whether political leaders in the North Korean and Ukrainian-Russian border cases follow the rational model. Researchers using performance ethnography create narratives as they impersonate political leaders interfacing with Planet Romeo's matchmaking/dating/meeting capabilities. Different researchers with varying expert levels impersonate political leaders interfacing with Planet Romeo. Narratives explaining what happens are created and analyzed. Interpretivism produces qualitative results, and knowledge about border conflicts improves. The methodology places substantial emphasis on transformative ICT and the information economy. Conclusions emerge that are useful in discussing the rationality of present border conflicts