This article studies the management of territorial claims using an issuebased approach that reconceptualizes processes of interstate conflict and cooperation as reflecting contention over issues. Hypotheses on issue management techniques are tested using newly collected data from the Issue Correlates of War~ICOW! research project. Empirical analysis of territorial claims in the Western Hemisphere supports the general model, with issue salience and past issue interactions systematically affecting states' choices between peaceful and militarized techniques for managing or settling their contentious issues. In particular, action over territorial claims is most likely when more valuable territory is at stake, in the aftermath of militarized conflict, and when recent peaceful settlement attempts have failed. Third parties are more likely to become involved in nonbinding activities when the claim appears more threatening to regional or global stability, and submission of claims to binding third-party decisions is most likely between adversaries that have begun to build up a legacy of successful agreements. The article concludes with a discussion of directions for future research on territory and on other issues.

Early research on contentious issues in world politics suggested that there is an important distinction between largely tangible and largely intangible issues. Tangible issues are thought to be easier to resolve, while intangible issues can fester for long periods of time through fruitless negotiations and repeated armed conflict. Research on territorial issues has suggested that many territorial claims are driven by both tangible and intangible concerns, though, which complicates the analysis of issue tangibility. The authors argue that territorial issues with greater intangible salience (e.g. historical possessions, important homelands, sacred sites, identity ties) should be harder to resolve peacefully and should produce more frequent and severe militarized conflict. Empirical analyses of 191 territorial claims in the Americas and Western Europe (1816-2001) provide mixed support for these expectations. Territorial claims with high intangible salience are significantly more likely to experience militarized disputes and wars. Surprisingly, though, states are much more likely to strike peaceful agreements with their adversaries over territories that are valued for intangible reasons.

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.

This paper builds on a large literature that explores the linkages between resource scarcity and interstate conflict. Focusing on competing claims over cross-border rivers, we analyze peaceful and militarized techniques used by states to manage river claims, and compare the success of these techniques for resolving the issues under contention. We focus on two key factors to account for variance in the use and effectiveness of conflict management strategies: water scarcity and institutions. We argue that high levels of water scarcity increase the frequency of explicit claims over fresh water, increase the chances of militarized conflict over these claims, and make it more difficult for conflict management institutions to be created or to be effective. We also examine the role of peace-promoting institutions, both river-specific and general institutions, arguing that institutional membership should promote peaceful attempts to resolve river claims. Analyzing data on river claims (1900e2001) from the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project, we find that greater water scarcity increases the likelihood of both militarized conflict and peaceful third party settlement attempts, while river-specific institutions reduce militarized conflict and increase the effectiveness of peaceful settlement attempts.

Recent research on interstate conflict and rivalry has shown that most conflict occurs between long-time rival countries, and has used enduring rivalries to test propositions on arms races, deterrence, and power transitions. Yet most of this research has focused on the dynamics of already-established rivalry; little is known about how adversaries become long-term rivals. The present effort attempts to account for the origins of rivalry with an evolutionary model of interstate rivalry that treats rivalry as a dynamic process, evolving out of interactions between two adversaries. Empirical analyses reveal that the context of recent relations between two adversaries has a great influence on their conflict behavior, particularly on their probability of engaging in further conflict along the path toward or away from enduring rivalry. As two adversaries accumulate a longer history of conflict, their rivalry relationship tends to become "locked in" or entrenched, with future conflict becoming increasingly difficult to avoid; specific characteristics of their past confrontations can hasten or reverse this movement toward rivalry. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of this evolutionary model for the understanding of rivalry, conflict, and world politics more generally.