When Are Governments Able to Reach Negotiated Settlement Agreements? An Analysis of Dispute Resolution in Territorial Disputes, 1919–1995

Abstract

It has been well documented that territorial disputes historically have been a frequent cause of international wars (e.g., Holsti 1991) and that among the various issues at stake in international disputes, the risk of armed conflict is perhaps greatest when the issue centers on conflicting claims to territory (e.g., Vasquez 1993, ch. 4; Hensel 2000; Senese and Vasquez 2003). Because territorial disputes often turn violent, it is imperative to understand not only why territorial disputes escalate to armed violence, but also when such disputes can be settled, thus averting future violence and bloodshed. Yet much of the scholarship on territorial disputes focuses on explaining when territorial disputes will escalate to crises and armed conflict. In turn, there has been relatively little scholarly work on processes of territorial conflict resolution (see however Simmons 1999, 2002; Hensel 2001; Mitchell 2002a). In this chapter, we seek to address this gap in the literature by testing hypotheses about the international and domestic conditions that led states to reach negotiated settlement agreements to end territorial disputes during the period 1919–1995.