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This paper advances a definition of "conflict personalization" and suggests some future directions for research. Specifically, I argue that conflict personalization occurs when the leader of one country defines a political or territorial conflict as a dispute with the leader of another state, rather than a dispute with the entire polity. Moreover, when a conflict is personalized, a leader has a tendency to view his or her counterpart as driven by irrational motives. Using literature from social psychology, linguistics, and international relations, I outline a definition of conflict personalization, and suggest some hypotheses about the conditions under which it is likely to occur, as well as its consequences. I conclude by suggesting directions for research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While several studies have been focused on the conflict onset or escalation between democratic dyads, not so much research has been done on conflict escalation between the mixed (democratic and non-democratic) dyads. I add to this ongoing discussion by evaluating the effect of state preferences on conflict escalation between the mixed dyads. By applying the social network analysis on the measurement of state preferences, this paper gives students of conflict study a better understanding of measuring preferences than other ordinary first-order indicators. I also analyze relative Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) between 1946-1992 by a censored probit model to examine the effects of structural affinity (state preferences) on ordinal levels of escalation. My finding suggests that structural affinity scores are statistically significant on conflict escalation among democratic and non-democratic dyads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are currently 62 enduring territorial disputes worldwide. The question is why so many disputes have not been settled. This paper proposes that many enduring territorial disputes can be explained by a theory of bargaining leverage. By persisting in territorial disputes, challenger states can pursue a strategy of issue linkage and compellence in order to achieve bargaining leverage in another disputed issue area. This dual strategy entails the challenger state first provoking the target state diplomatically or militarily regarding the territorial dispute, then threatening to take further action if the target state does not make a change regarding another disputed issue. In this way, the challenger state links the two issues, using the threat of action in the territorial dispute to compel the target state to change its behavior or policy in another disputed issue. I test the theory by examining the foreign policy strategies of Morocco in its territorial dispute with Spain over the enclaves Ceuta and Melilla. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) expand when most remain restricted to their original disputants? Existing literature on war diffusion treats war as a disease that 'infects' any country in contact with those fighting the war thereby making them susceptible to joining the war as well (Most and Starr 1989, Siverson and Starr 1991, Yamamoto and Bremer 1980). In doing so it over-predicts diffusion-expansion of wars. In contrast, this paper recognizes the strategic nature of occurrence of conflict and the decision to participate in it. States make such decisions taking into account what others are doing. States have multiple and simultaneous interactions with other states that are involved in the same conflict and with those that are uninvolved but not extraneous to the dispute. These interactions between states occur within networks of economic, political and security ties and over a physical geographical space. How states are positioned in these network spaces affects their likelihood to join an ongoing dispute and consequently whether a conflict expands or not. This paper uses network analysis to (a) build networks for multiple relationships like contiguous neighbors, militarized rivalry, alliances and IGO memberships, and (b) create measures for potential joiner states' positionality in these networks. The paper then empirically analyzes multiple hypotheses about how a potential joiner state's positionality in these network spaces can have different, reinforcing or opposing effects on that state's decision to join an ongoing dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, Russia and Japan have both argued for developing a "strategic relationship" between the two powers. However, the southern Kurile/Northern Territories territorial dispute has acted time and again to frustrate this endeavor. In this paper, the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute is examined. Beginning with a historical examination of claims to the disputed islands, the paper continues with a deeper analysis of events more recently (since 2000). The paper analyzes the considerable impediments to an eventual resolution of these claims, while discussing the significant opportunities that lie ahead for either power should the Kurile/Northern Territories dispute be resolved. Lastly, the case evaluates the possibilities for resolution of the conflict in the run up to parliamentary/presidential elections in either country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the reasons behind the continuous advancement of some resistance movements like the Guatemalan Civil War as of January 2016 despite the stress and unbalanced power polarity of the opposing parties. Also examined are the effects of such war factors as territorial claims and dissatisfaction with economic standard of living to the outcome and duration of conflicts, citing as example the case of Israel and Palestine.

High levels of nationalism, territorial disputes, concerns over the division of natural resources, and a rising power in the form of the People's Republic of China (PRC), add up to make East Asia an area of critical US foreign policy concern. Today, with the Chinese economy beginning to show serious signs of instability for the first time since Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations, potential threats to stability loom large in this region. One negative potential outcome would be the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempting to bolster regime strength by stoking nationalism through military conflict. Along with this point, the greater the level of economic instability in the PRC, the more likely this turn to nationalism through regional conflict becomes. The South China Sea with its many islands and reefs in dispute between the PRC and neighboring states presents a high potential for such a dangerous regional conflict. There is also the threat of escalating tensions between Japan and the PRC over the fate of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. Unfortunately, there exists no shortage of possible flashpoints in this volatile corner of the world. For these reasons and more, East Asia has become a region that will likely consume the world's attention for decades to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the presence of territorial disagreements between two rival states affects the handling of non-territorial disagreements by those same rivals. Extant research demonstrates that rival states are more aggressive in addressing threat to territorial stakes and that disagreements over the territorial status quo are prone to escalation. Competition between two rivals, however, is often characterized by disagreement over multiple issues. Consequently, the question arises as to whether two rivals, confronted with disagreements over territorial and non-territorial stakes, are able to separate how they handle these different issues. I present theory and evidence that suggests there is a spillover effect in territorial rivalries, where non-territorial disagreements are often more severe than they would be in the absence of territorial disagreements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International rivalries persist until the issues that drive them are resolved. Due to differing characteristics, some issue conflicts may be more difficult to settle than others. In this paper, I argue that three issue characteristics determine the difficulty or ease with which an issue disagreement is resolved - tangibility, government or regime issue linkage, and preference malleability. Examining the characteristics of spatial (territorial), positional, identity (ethnic-religious), and ideological issue conflicts, I find that spatial and positional issue conflicts have characteristics likely to be associated with issue intractability, while identity and ideological issue conflicts do not. Rivalries driven by spatial and/or positional issue conflict should consequently tend to be relatively long lasting, while rivalries driven by identity and ideological issue conflicts should tend to be relatively brief in duration. A survival analysis of strategic rivals supports such expectations and demonstrates that issue intractability is an important factor in determining the likelihood of rivalry termination. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher levels of democracy in the dyad are often associated with higher likelihoods of successful negotiation and lower levels of conflict escalation. Democracies also tend to win their wars, most likely due to their ability to select the conflicts they choose to escalate. Building on my prior work in ISQ, this paper revisits these findings and argues that democracies, because of their path toward state development, have few territorial issues over which to contend. In fact, rarely do democracies have territorial issues with their neighbors. Thus, democracies have less difficult issues to resolve, making mediation more likely and conflict escalation less likely. Similarly, states without neighbors ready to attack can more easily choose favorable conflicts to escalate. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States involved in territorial disputes are more likely to threaten or use force (MID) compared to states involved in other types of interstate disputes, when the disputed territory has strategic or ethnic value, and when the opposing states are contiguous, rivals, or have relative power parity. Though useful, these factors are static or rarely change over time, so they cannot explain the timing of a MID in a territorial dispute. It is not clear why a challenger state would threaten or use force at one point in the dispute, but not at another point. This study proposes that challenger states sometimes use MIDs not only to signal resolve to the opposing state in the territorial dispute, but to credibly demonstrate resolve to other adversaries in other disputes - an attempt to transfer reputation for resolve. To tackle the debate about transferability of reputation for resolve, the study empirically analyzes all territorial disputes from 1919-1995 and finds support that challenger states are more likely to initiate territorial MIDs as costly signals of resolve and credibility around the same time as another MID with a different adversary. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]