Control the issues, control the conflict: The effects of alliances that settle territorial issues on interstate rivalries

Abstract

Research has shown that a large number of interstate disputes frequently occur between the same pairs of states and that these rivalries tend to include wars more often than not. This article examines whether states involved in rivalry can take steps to manage disputed issues and decrease the probability of the rivalry escalating to war. The analyses presented here suggest that states can and do take steps to manage their disputes. It is shown that certain alliance commitments are actually attempts to manage conflict between rival states by removing territorial issues from their agendas. These territorial settlement treaties fundamentally change the nature of the rivalry by changing the issues of contention. Once this occurs, the nature of future disputes is altered and the probability of repeated disputes decreases. Even in enduring rivalries, rivals that have formed prior territorial settlements experience much less conflict than other rivals. Lastly, it is also shown that major‐major, enduring rivalries with prior territorial settlements take much longer before going to war—they will suffer through twice as many disputes and four times as many years of rivalry before going to war than other enduring rivals. Methodologically, this paper utilitizes the “rivalry approach” recently advocated by Goertz and Diehl (1996) in addition to the more familiar cross‐sectional, dyad‐year approach. The use of the rivalry approach is believed to be especially warranted considering this issue's focus upon rivalry termination. Traditional cross‐sectional approaches often obscure dynamic relationships that exist between rivals and ignore fundamental changes that occur over time. Obviously, the termination of the rivalry is just such a fundamental change and cannot occur without prior shifts in the rivalry relationship. Therefore, rivalry termination should provide excellent testing ground for this new approach.