Aims, claims, and the bargaining model of war

Abstract

Although in principle states can bargain over the entire extent of their combined territory, we observe historically that states bargain within far more limited confines defined by well-bounded claims. We argue that this observation stems from the fact that states generally have limited territorial aims due either to limited benefits of obtaining additional territory and/or the costs of absorbing and controlling new territories and their inhabitants. Using a formal model, we show that introducing states with limited aims over territory has strategic implications for bargaining that have not been appreciated in canonical models that do not consider heterogeneity in state preferences. Whereas traditional models generally imply that small demands undermine the credibility of a challenger's threat, the existence of states with limited territorial aims makes limited demands credible, effective, and stable in the face of shocks to relative power. We then employ geospatial data on the geographic extent of territorial disputes in the period 1947–2000 to establish two results: the size of claims is weakly related to the relative power of disputants and unaffected by dramatic changes in power, and smaller claims are associated with a higher probability that the challenger will receive any concession.

Homelands and Nationalism

“…The role of homelands in nationalism suggests that nationalist territorial ambitions, while perhaps expansive, are not infinite; rather they are limited to the area of the homeland. As a result, nationalists' claims that their territorial demands are limited are more credible than they might otherwise be, reducing the risk to other entities of conceding to these demands, and thus facilitating conflict resolution (Schultz and Goemans 2019).…”

History as a double-edged sword

“…The large literature surveyed above on the consequences of territorial disputes for states' relations make clear that leaders pay a range of costs for opening new territorial claims. As Schultz and Goemans (2017) point out, we should expect leaders to carefully make bounded claims, unless they are the rare type of leader that seeks unlimited aims and are not worried about costs. 7 However, exactly how leaders make limited claims is surprisingly undertheorized.…”

“…In fact, a justification for making a claim that explicitly rests on the 'need' to expand one's borders at the expense of neighboring states is a fairly bald-faced statement of expansionism. Accordingly, territorial claims of this kind between neighboring states are quite rare, with the example of Germany in the 1930s serving as a prominent but atypical example (Schultz and Goemans, 2017).…”

“…When a leader makes a claim based on a specific historical precedent, this provides a relatively clear boundary around the neighboring territory that her state wants to integrate. This helps signal that a leader is not an expansionist type with unlimited aims by putting a specific demarcation around the claim (Schultz and Goemans, 2017). Accordingly, other leaders with interests in the region are much less threatened by clearly bounded and limited claims as they have fewer worries about the scope of such claims.…”

“…Much recent theory about how leaders pursue territorial claims assumes that leaders are rational and strategic. 2 Most leaders pursue territorial claims with rather specific aims in mind and the idea that leaders simply want 'more' territory and thus claim as much as they can is easy to rule out (Schultz and Goemans, 2017). The claims made are quite precise and are also typically relatively small.…”