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Recent scholarship suggests interstate war is on the decline. In fact, some scholars claim that war is nearly obsolete. But is this decline universal? Using newly coded data, we show that the general decline in the phenomenon of interstate war is not evenly distributed across regions of the world. We argue that this geographic shift of warfare is impacted by the interaction of the international norm of border fixity, a proscription of the forceful conquest and annexation of homeland territory, and state capacity. We examine current scholarship on the issue and explore cases that demonstrate several mechanisms that link our explanation to the shifting geography of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Most explorations of state failure focus on domestic politics and economy. Yet international territorialpressures, or the lack thereof, are often crucial to the understanding of such failure. Since its 1943 independence,Lebanon has experienced recurrent bursts of violence, most involving a combination of domestic and external actors. Most of these eruptions, including the summer 2006 war with Israel and the political crisis that followed, have been direct results of the extreme weakness and failure of the Lebanese state. This paper uses the case of Lebanon as a critical case to study and analyze several prominent explanations of state failure against an argument that ties state failure to the lack of territorial pressure. I maintain that the lack of territorial pressure - itself a product of an international norm that prohibits foreign conquest and annexation of homeland territory - also deprives young states of the tools and incentives that enable them to become stronger. The paper argues that Lebanon enjoyed, at independence, most of the economic, social and political advantages that the most common theories of state failure suggest as preconditions for success (or, at least, prevention of failure). Nevertheless, as a state, Lebanon has never managed to gain significant strength, and since the 1970s it has experienced various degrees of failure. The roots of this ongoing failure can be found in the international environment, and especially in the lack of territorial pressure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between state weakness or failure and terrorism is today a common theme in much of the western world. The theoretical discussion that exists about the actual relations between the weakness of states and their likelihood to serve as bases or "safe havens" for terror or guerilla organizations, however, is narrow and underdeveloped. The conventional wisdom holds that, in some vague way, the vacuum of power that exists when the state is failing draws in insurgent organizations. While this notion is partially true, this paper aims at advancing the discussion by arguing that state failure creates an environment that provides a breeding ground for insurgency in many other ways as well. In addition to the lack of state enforcement of law and order, failed states also provide a friendly environment to such organizations because of low levels of identification with the state; because weak states cannot resist external attempts to use such organizations as proxies; because the high level of internal violence that is associated with failed states creates a demand for armed allies; and because the lack of state services and institutions allows the organizations to operate as "substitute states," thus gaining the needed legitimacy for their violent cross-border goals. More than any other factor, it is the weakness of the Lebanese state and its failure to function as a state that drags Lebanon, again and again, into involvement in external conflicts. And it is the incentives and conditions that such weakness offers transnational guerillas, terrorists and other sub-state armed groups, or insurgencies, that create the link between state failure and external conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Second World War, an international norm of "border fixity,"a proscription on the use of force to alter interstate boundaries, has become prevalent in world politics. As a consequence, and in a markedly different pattern than in the past, very few cases of conquest and annexation of homeland territory occurred since 1950. This paper asks what are the effects of the norm of border fixity on interstate conflict and peace? It argues that in regions where states are strong- that is, possesing of effective governmental institutions and enjoying high level of legitimacy as a state, the effects of the norms are very positive. In regions where states are weak, on the other hand, border fixity often have adverse consequences for interstate relations. The norm of border fixity also perpetuate the weakness of states in these region. The paper illustrates these diverged effects of the border fixity norm through observations taken from multiple cases in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Palestinians and Israelis, if assured about their security, as individuals and as states, would rather reach a reasonable compromise, based on a two-state solution, than keep on with their perennial violent struggle. Most, however, support the continuation and the escalation of this very same struggle. These methods, rather than bringing the sides closer to the desired peace, get them further and further away from it. The Complex Spiral Model, developed in this paper on the basis of Robert Jervis? original Spiral Model, can help us understand this phenomenon. Radical minorities on both sides use ?Domestic outbidding? and ?Strategic interaction? to aggravate the tendency of people to view the other?s action as unprovoked and centrally planed, and their own actions as justified reactions. The result is a breakup of the peace process and a violent spiral of escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a three-tier argument: (a) that since the 1950’s a stronger and stronger international norm established itself. This norm, which I call the norm of border fixity, is the assumption, on the part of both regional actors and the international community in general, that international borders should not be changed, regardless of the presence (or absence) of real sovereign control within the state borders, or any other condition; (b) That this norm perpetuates and exacerbates the weakness (in both institutional and identity terms) of states that were already weak at the time of the normative shift (circa 1950), causing them sometimes to fail or completely collapse; and (c) That the weakness or failure of states is a major cause of international conflict, through spillover of civil wars, ethnic alliances across borders, provision of opportunities for other states to intervene, and the provision of bases for insurgence and international terrorists. I demonstrate this theoretical framework by studying the case of Congo (the Democratic Republic of Congo, previously Zaire) and the convergence of civil war and international war in which it has been entangled for the last seven years. This ongoing conflict, which already have cost the lives of more than two million people and directly involved at least eight African states, is a fertile ground for studying both causes of state failure and causes of international conflicts. The case of the war in Congo supplies ample evidence for my arguments, as well as some suggestions for further directions of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While theories of deterrence have traditionally been developed for inter-state war, the logic of deterrence is assumed also to hold when states face violence on the part of non-state actors. However, we know little about how the dynamics of deterrence ope ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas held by decision makers with regard to international politics, or their worldview, has an important effect on their policies. While territorial expansions and contractions have gained increasing scholarly attention lately, one of the most intriguing and consequential changes of territorial policy remains understudied. Germany have lost almost one fourth of its territory in WW-II (mainly to Poland). Up until the late 1960s West Germany adamantly rejected calls for recognizing these new borders. Within two years of the establishment of the SPD/FDP government, however, the Federal Republic signed aggreement with the Soviet Union and Poland that assured its official recognition of the new borders. This paper explains this change of policy as a consequence not simply of different worldviews held by different leaders, but of different realist worldviews of Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, which led to the recognition of the Oder-Neisse line as Poland's western border. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]