A Unified Explanation of Territorial Conflict: Testing the Impact of Sampling Bias, 1919–1992

This article develops a new unified territorial explanation of conflict that accounts for the possibility of certain factors affecting the rise of a militarized dispute, as well as the probability that a dispute will escalate to war. In the past, research linking territorial disputes to a relatively high probability of war outbreak has been criticized for underestimating the potential problem of sampling bias in the militarized interstate dispute (MID) data. This study utilizes newly available data on territorial claims going back to 1919 to determine, using a two-stage estimation procedure, whether the presence of territorial claims in the dispute onset phase affects the relationship between territorial militarized disputes and war in the second stage. It is found that territorial claims increase the probability of a militarized dispute occurring and that territorial MIDs increase the probability of war, even while controlling for the effect of territorial claims on dispute onset. The effect of territory across the two stages is consistent with the new territorial explanation of conflict and war and shows no sampling bias with regard to territory in the MID data.

[1]  Nils Petter Gleditsch,et al.  Democracy and Peace , 1992 .

[2]  W. R. Neuman,et al.  Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment , 2000 .

[3]  J. David Singer,et al.  Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical Patterns , 1996 .

[4]  D. Scott Bennett,et al.  Eugene: A conceptual manual , 2000 .

[5]  Paul R. Hensel,et al.  Interstate Rivalry and the Study of Militarized Conflict , 1998 .

[6]  Gary Goertz,et al.  Territorial changes and international conflict , 1992 .

[7]  B. Russett,et al.  Comment: Why “an identified systemic model of the democracy‐peace nexus” does not persuade , 2000 .

[8]  Paul R. Hensel,et al.  Charting A Course To Conflict: Territorial Issues and Interstate Conflict, 1816-1992 , 1996 .

[9]  Curtis S. Signorino.  Strategic Interaction and the Statistical Analysis of International Conflict , 1999, American Political Science Review.

[10]  R. Sack.  Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History , 1986 .

[11]  Ted Robert Gurr,et al.  Transitions to Democracy: Tracking Democracy''s Third Wave with the Polity III Data , 1996 .

[12]  A. Bikash Roy,et al.  Intervention Across Bisecting Borders , 1997 .

[13]  J. Goodall.  Through a Window , 1990 .

[14]  Randolph M. Siverson.  Thinking About Puzzles in the Study of International War , 1996 .

[15]  Alastair Smith,et al.  Testing theories of strategic choice: The example of crisis escalation , 1999 .

[16]  Glenn Palmer,et al.  Give or Take: Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy Substitutability , 2002 .

[17]  Jason Wittenberg,et al.  Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results , 2003 .

[18]  J. Heckman.  Sample selection bias as a specification error , 1979 .

[19]  Z. Maoz,et al.  Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816-1976 , 1984 .

[20]  L. R. Reed,et al.  A unified statistical model of conflict onset and escalation American Journal of Political Science 4 , 2000 .

[21]  Paul K. Huth.  Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict , 1996 .

[22]  Russell J. Leng.  When Will They Ever Learn? , 1983 .

[23]  Paul R. Hensel.  Contentious Issues and World Politics: The Management of Territorial Claims in the Americas, 1816-1992 , 2001 .

[24]  Paul D. Senese,et al.  Geographical Proximity and Issue Salience: Their Effects on the Escalation of Militarized Interstate Conflict , 1996 .

[25]  Douglas M. Gibler.  An Extension of the Correlates of War Formal Alliance Dat Set, 1648-1815 , 1999 .

[26]  Randolph M. Siverson,et al.  War Expansion and War Outcome , 1996 .

[27]  S. Bremer.  Dangerous Dyads , 1992 .

[28]  B. Simmons.  COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS , 1998 .

[29]  P. James,et al.  An identified systemic model of the democracy‐peace nexus , 1999 .

[30]  W. Reed,et al.  The Relevance of Politically Relevant Dyads , 2001 .

[31]  Nathaniel Beck,et al.  Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable , 1998 .

[32]  James D. Morrow,et al.  Capabilities, Uncertainty, and Resolve: A Limited Information Model of Crisis Bargaining , 1989 .

[33]  John A. Vasquez.  Mapping the Probability of War and Analyzing the Possibility of Peace: the Role of Territorial Disputes , 2001 .

[34]  L. Valzelli.  Psychobiology of aggression and violence , 1981 .

[35]  William J. Dixon,et al.  Democracy, Disputes, and Negotiated Settlements , 2002 .

[36]  William Reed,et al.  War and Rivalry among Great Powers , 2001 .

[37]  John A. Vasquez,et al.  Territorial Disputes and the Probability of War, 1816-1992 , 2001 .

[38]  William J. Dixon,et al.  Democracy and the Management of International Conflict , 1993 .

[39]  M. Mousseau,et al.  A Test for Reverse Causality in the Democratic Peace Relationship , 1999 .

[40]  Tx Station.  Stata Statistical Software: Release 7. , 2001 .

[41]  S. Quackenbush,et al.  Sowing the Seeds of Conflict: The Effect of Dispute Settlements on Durations of Peace , 2003 .

[42]  J. David Singer,et al.  Formal Alliances, 1816-1965: an Extension of the Basic Data , 1969 .

[43]  P. Diehl,et al.  See You in 'Court'? The Appeal to Quasi-Judicial Legal Processes in the Settlement of Territorial Disputes , 1999 .

[44]  A. Somit.  Humans, Chimps, and Bonobos , 1990 .

[45]  Harvey Starr,et al.  Inquiry, logic, and international politics , 1989 .

[46]  E. Azar.  The Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) Project , 1980 .

[47]  Paul K. Huth,et al.  The Democratic Peace and Territorial Con?ict in the Twentieth Century , 2003 .

[48]  P. Senese.  Between Dispute and War: The Effect of Joint Democracy on Interstate Conflict Escalation , 1997, The Journal of Politics.

[49]  John A. Vasquez.  The War Puzzle: PRELIMINARIES , 1993 .

[50]  R. Masters.  The nature of politics , 1989 .

[51]  Paul K. Huth.  Enduring Rivalries and Territorial Disputes, 1950-1990 , 1996 .

[52]  B. Russett,et al.  Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations , 2000 .

[53]  M. Mousseau.  Market Prosperity, Democratic Consolidation, and Democratic Peace , 2000 .

[54]  P. James,et al.  Democracy and peace: Reply to oneal and russett , 2000 .

[55]  J. Wilkenfeld,et al.  A Study of Crisis , 1997 .

[56]  Christopher H. Achen.  The Statistical Analysis of Quasi-Experiments , 2023 .

[57]  P. Senese.  Democracy and Maturity: Deciphering Conditional Effects on Levels of Dispute Intensity , 1999 .

[58]  J. David Singer,et al.  Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980 , 1982 .

[59]  Gary Goertz,et al.  War and peace in international rivalry , 2000 .

[60]  J. Fearon.  Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes , 1994, American Political Science Review.

[61]  Curtis S. Signorino.  Strategy and Selection in International Relations , 2002 .

[62]  P. Winch,et al.  The idea of a social science , 1960, Against the Self-Images of the Age.

[63]  Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,et al.  War and Reason , 1992 .