Territorial dispute is one of the most frequent causes of international conflict and can lead to enduring militarized rivalries that are more likely than other kinds of conflicts to recur. While much research has focused on the relationship between territorial disputes and war, less attention has been paid to the conditions under which they end or resolve. This article seeks to fill that gap by analyzing the role of domestic factors in the initiation and management of territorial-based conflict.
A key issue in the study of territorial-based conflict is the conceptual and operational definition of what constitutes a territory at issue. This is not a trivial matter, because distinguishing territorial-based conflict from other forms of confrontation is central to the development of a more precise and relevant theory of international conflict.
Many of the most powerful and heavily armed states on earth are locked in a variety of territorial disputes, including the recent crises in Ukraine and Gaza, Russia and Syria, India and Pakistan, Venezuela and Colombia, and China and several of its neighbors. All of these disputes are rooted in arguments over sovereignty, in which one state contends that it has the right to exercise control over the land that it claims as its own.
A key finding is that claims of historical ownership generate beliefs in the indivisible nature of a territorial good, as defined by Brams and Taylor as an item that “will have no value at all if divided.” This belief is likely generated by the fact that losing a disputed territory is often perceived as unjust or humiliating for a nation and its people.