Territoriality and War in International Crises: Theory and Findings, 1918-2001

The ongoing interest in the effects of territoriality on conflict among states makes it necessary to integrate and examine the existing claims on this topic and to apply them to the empirical data on crisis, conflict, and war. The early literature on territoriality has presented a unidimensional model explaining the occurrence of war. Its major claim accords well with common sense: the more salient the territorial conflict between states, the more likely is the outbreak of war between them. Conventional wisdom and the existing literature about territoriality and violence suggest a simple cause–effect relationship between these two variables (see, for example, Most and Starr 1980; Diehl 1985, 1991, 1992; Diehl and Goertz 1988; Thompson 1990; O'Loughlin and Anselin 1991; Starr 1991; Goertz and Diehl 1992; Ruggie 1993; Gleditsch 1995; Kocs 1995; Gray 1996).1 Yet, the concept of territoriality has not always been clearly defined. Nor has it been consistently operationalized or tested across a large number of cases. Furthermore, most empirical data relate to war situations but not to the complex escalation patterns that unfold in the course of an international confrontation and do not always end with full-scale war.2 The fact that neighbors confront one another, and sometimes even fight, does not automatically validate the link between territoriality and conflict. To determine if such a relationship exists, one must compare nonwar with war situations and explore several dimensions of territoriality in these diverse situations. Such an analysis is the purpose of this essay.