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Contentious issues have frequently been overlooked in the study of international relations and interstate conflict. This paper explores the influence of territory and territorial issues on processes of interstate conflict. I begin by reviewing existing approaches to the study of territory, and existing theoretical efforts to understand the role of territory. I then offer an empirical investigation of the effects of territory on conflict, using the Correlates of War Project's data on militarized interstate disputes. Conflict processes are found to differ noticeably when territorial issues are at stake between the adversaries. Disputes in which territorial issues are at stake tend to be much more escalatory than disputes over less salient issues, using several different indicators of dispute severity and escalation. Disputes over territorial issues are less likely to end in stalemated outcomes than disputes over other issues, and more likely to end in decisive outcomes. Furthermore, the same adversaries are more likely to become involved in recurrent conflict in the aftermath of disputes over territorial issues, and this future conflict is likely to recur sooner than after disputes over other issues. Territorial issues thus seem to be especially salient to state leaders, producing more escalatory confrontations and being difficult to resolve through militarized means without triggering recurrent conflict in the future. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for future research on conflict and on contentious issues, and by offering some implications for policy-makers.

Most systematic research on interstate conflict has overlooked the effects of one confrontation on subsequent conflict between the same adversaries. This article explores three aspects of recurrent militarized interstate disputes: the likelihood of a subsequent dispute between the same states, the interval between disputes involving the same adversaries, and characteristics of the initiators of recurrent disputes. These three queries are addressed through empirical examination of recurrent militarized conflict in Latin America from 1816-1986. Subsequent conflict between the same two adversaries is found to be more likely when territorial issues are under contention, and less likely when the first confrontation ends in a negotiated compromise outcome. The next confrontation tends to occur sooner after disputes that ended in stalemate, rather than in compromise or in a decisive outcome, and when territorial issues are at stake. The level of escalation reached in the dispute had little effect by itself on the timing of later conflict, but stronger results were produced in interaction with the type of issue at stake. Similar results were obtained both for recurrent conflict overall, and for recurrent conflict over the same contentious issues as before, but the combination of dispute outcomes, contentious issues, and escalation produced much stronger results with respect to the likelihood and timing of future conflict over the same issue(s). Additionally, the results did not provide overwhelming support for any single ideal type of characteristics of recurrent dispute initiators, with different initiation patterns following different types of dispute outcomes.

In a large fraction of all cases where a state faces an immediate military threat, it chooses to respond without resort to the threat, display, or use of military force. We seek to account for this phenomenon of nonmilitary response and to assess the utility of this strategy. We present a series of hypotheses to account for nonmilitary response, based on the literature on reciprocity, and test them using cases of interstate conflict involving Latin American states since 1816. Target states are less likely to respond militarily when the issues at stake are not highly salient, when the initiator's threat does not involve the actual use of military force, and when the target is substantially weaker than its adversary. A militarized response is more likely when the target state has employed a similar strategy in past conflict against the same adversary, regardless of the outcome of that past confrontation, and when the target is preoccupied with a civil war. No significant effect appears for contiguity or for the target state's preoccupation with another militarized dispute. Regarding the consequences of nonmilitary response, responding with militarized means did lessen the likelihood of defeat in a confrontation and increase the prospects for a successful outcome, but this advantage was small. From a more long-term perspective, nonmilitary response served to decrease the likelihood of future confrontations against the same adversary and to increase the length of time until the outbreak of the next confrontation. There thus seems to be a trade-off in terms of the outcome of the confrontation between the slight short-term costs of responding militarily and the longer term benefits of helping to postpone or avoid future conflict.

Nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges stieg die Zahl und Form von Interventionen zur Konfliktlösung im Rahmen der UNO dramatisch an. Dieses erweiterte neue Aufgabenfeld führte nicht immer zum Erfolg. Dabei wurden die unmittelbaren Fehlschläge deutlich, während die langfristigen Möglichkeiten dieser Art von internationalem Krisenmanagement noch nicht zu Tage treten konnten. UN-Interventionen scheinen sich als ineffizient erwiesen zu haben, um die Gefahr zukünftiger Konflikte zu verringern oder gar zu bannen und dies unabhängig von den Bestimmungsfaktoren des Konfliktes in seiner Vorphase und anderen Determinanten in der Konfliktkonstellation. Ebenso wenig erfolgreich waren UN-Initiativen, um vor potentielllen zukünftigen Konflikten abzuschrecken. Diese wenig überzeugenden Ergebnisse fordern einen Wechsel und ein Umdenken der UNO in ihrer Langzeitstrategie. (SWP-zss)

The end of the cold war has signaled a dramatic increase in the number and forms of United Nations (UN) intervention into ongoing conflicts. Yet, this larger UN role has not always translated into success. Short-term failures are evident, but the long-term effects of UN efforts are not readily apparent. We explore this longer-term impact by examining the incidence of recurring conflict between state dyads following a crisis. Overall, UN intervention has proved ineffective in inhibiting, delaying, or lessening the severity of future conflicts, independent of the level of violence in the precipitating crisis, the relative capabilities of the two states, the states' history of conflict, and the form of crisis outcome; nor were UN efforts successful in deterring future conflict. These sobering results suggest that changes in long-term strategy may be in order.