Why do sovereign states sometimes fail to settle territorial disputes peacefully? Also, why do even peaceful settlements of territorial disputes rarely call for the resulting border to be unfortified? This paper explores a class of answers to these questions that is based on the following premise: States can settle a territorial dispute peacefully only if (1) their payoffs from a peaceful settlement are larger than their expected payoffs from a default to war, and (2) their promises not to attack are credible. This premise directs the analysis to such factors as the advantage of attacking over both defending and counterattacking, the divisibility of the contested territory, the possibility of recurring war, the depreciation or obsolescence of fortifications, and inequality in the effectiveness of mobilized resources.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
10601.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10601
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gregory D. Hess & Athanasios Orphanides, 2001.
"War and Democracy,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 776-810, August.
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