Territorial Dispute

Territorial dispute is a disagreement between States over the placement of territory boundaries that delimit the areas in which they exercise sovereignty. Such disputes can be over the entire territory of a State or they can be focused on particular areas such as islands or the placement of borders along coastlines. They can have severe consequences in terms of diplomatic, economic and military tensions between States and can sometimes lead to armed conflict. Time and again, scholars have found that armed conflict over territorial issues is more likely to escalate to war than other forms of conflict. This finding has been consistent across studies that leverage a variety of data sets and issue typologies, including the CoW-MID set.

While there are a number of definitional problems that face the study of territorial dispute (e.g., it is not always possible to distinguish between active and latent claims), a number of efforts have been made to identify territorial disputes. Most such analyses are conducted on the basis of international conflict data which often include only those conflicts that involve the use or threat of military force. This can exclude many of the most serious territorial-based disputes and it also misses those that have not yet reached the militarized stage.

In a recent analysis, Huth applies a modified realist model to examine the determinants of territorial disputes and finds that domestic considerations are critical in the escalation of such disputes. However, he also finds that other factors such as relative power distributions and the existence of other types of disputes with the challenger also contribute to their initiation and escalation.