This article describes the first complete release of the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Territorial Claims dataset, which covers all interstate territorial claims between 1816 and 2001. Territory can have substantial tangible and intangible value for states, and competing claims for control of territory represent one of the leading sources of interstate conflict. The dataset identifies 843 territorial claims and includes measures of the salience of the claimed territory, as well as details of the militarization and ending of each claim. Beyond a discussion of the structure and contents of the dataset and the coding procedures that were used to generate it, this article also presents descriptive analyses of the dataset. These analyses highlight important patterns across time and space, including changes in the prevalence, frequency of initiation, salience, militarization, and resolution of territorial claims. Notable patterns include recent declines in the frequency with which claims tend to become militarized and a lower prevalence of tangible salience measures such as natural resources. The regional distribution of claims has also shifted markedly over time, from a historical concentration in Europe towards Asia, where by 2001 claims were far more prevalent than in any other region. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.
This paper explores the factors that affect Taiwanese citizens’ resistance to closer relations with China. Elements in Taiwanese society have recently exhibited a strong sense of anxiety in the face of a rising China. Distinct from the past military confrontation between China and Taiwan, more recently, Taiwanese citizens have been subject to a strengthening of cross-Strait relations and interactions, which makes their rising resistance to China puzzling. To empirically and theoretically explain why Taiwanese are resistant to closer ties with the mainland, we discuss three potential sources: cultural alienation, democratic anxiety, and economic interest. We test the effects of these three attitudinal factors on Taiwanese resistance to Chinese tourists, students, and workers using the China Impact Survey 2012 data set. The findings suggest that democratic anxiety, economic interest, and cultural alienation are all strong predictors in accounting for the public’s resistance to Chinese tourists and students, while economic interest is the most powerful factor in Taiwanese attitudes toward policies regarding Chinese workers. The findings provide important policy implications for policy makers in dealing with cross-Strait relations.
Territorial claims with an ethnic or identity component have been recognized as one of the most enduring and intractable sources of international conflict. Building on previous research which recognized the role of issue indivisibility in making compromise more difficult, this article focuses on the management of territorial claims with an identity or ethnic component. Utilizing the latest Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) dataset, the frequency, success, and qualitative content of negotiations over territorial claims are analyzed. The newest version of the ICOW dataset expands the spatial domain of Hensel and Mitchell's previous work that included the Americas and Western Europe, expanding this domain to include the entire world, and more closely examines the role of concessions in the negotiations process. The results support the contention that issue indivisibility hampers compromise behavior and negotiation success in identity-based territorial claims. Negotiations are less likely to occur, but surprisingly, more likely to succeed. Successful agreements are also more likely to see major concessions and territorial change. Identity-based claims are also less likely to end through compromise outcomes like negotiations, and more likely to terminate through unilateral action and violence. The results suggest that identity claims are punctuated by rare bouts of significant negotiationsmuch of which is driven by conquest, violence, and unilateral action.
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