Issue Conflict Intractability and the Persistence of International Rivalry.

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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]