衡量国家规模：纯粹的领土问题

Measuring the Size of a Country: A Purely Territorial Issue

摘要: 在政治科学领域，国家的概念至为重要。然而，尽管其在政治科学领域中占据核心，且无处不在，学术界对于国家的构成主体仍然缺乏明确的共识。政治学学者对国家的认识存在很大分歧，而对如何衡量国家规模的共识更少。曾有学者建议，用人口数量、经济指标、军事能量等变量来衡量国家规模，但并未达成共识。本文论证了统一国家规模的定义的必要性，并指出衡量一个国家规模唯一有效且合理的路径，就是衡量国家控制下的领土面积，除此之外用其他任何变量来测定国家规模的做法都欠妥当。

Abstract: In the field of political science, the concept of state is very important. However, although it occu-pies the core in the field of political science and is ubiquitous, the academic community still lacks a clear consensus on the main measures of a country. Scholars in the field of political science have great differences on the understanding of the country; they have limited consensuses on how to measure the size of a country. Some scholars have suggested that the population, economic indicators, military forces and other variables should be used to measure the size of a country, but there is no consensus. This paper demonstrates the necessity of unifying the definition of the scale of a country, and points out that the most effective and reasonable way to measure the scale of a country is to measure the territorial area under the control by the country. It is not appropriate to use any other variables to measure the scale of a country.