Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T20:11:15.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2018

Devorah Manekin ,
Guy Grossman Open the ORCID record for Guy Grossman [Opens in a new window]  and
Tamar Mitts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Territorial disputes are prone to conflict because of the value of territory to publics, whether due to its strategic and material worth, or to its intangible, symbolic value. Yet despite the implications of the distinction for both theory and policy, empirically disentangling the material from the symbolic has posed formidable methodological challenges. We propose a set of tools for assessing the nature of individual territorial attachment, drawing on a series of survey experiments in Israel. Using these tools, we find that a substantial segment of the Jewish population is attached to the disputed West Bank territory for intangible reasons, consisting not only of far-right voters but also of voters of moderate-right and centrist parties. This distribution considerably narrows the bargaining space of leaders regardless of coalitional configurations. Our empirical analysis thus illustrates how the distribution of territorial preferences in the domestic population can have powerful implications for conflict and its resolution.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 679 - 697
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Devorah Manekin is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, 9190501 (dmanekin@mail.huji.ac.il). Guy Grossman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania. 208 S. 37th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (ggros@sas.upenn.edu), and a member of the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) network. Tamar Mitts is an Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027 (tm2630@columbia.edu). The authors thank Daniel Berliner, Alex Braithwaite, Allan Dafoe, Naoki Egami, James Fearon, Noam Gidron, Stacie Goddard, Shanker Satyanath, Jacob Shapiro, Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan, Jakana Thomas, and two anonynmous reviewers for valuable feedback on earlier drafts. Guy Grossman wishes to thank The Christopher H. Brown Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania and the Israel Institute for their generous support of this study. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.22

References

Braithwaite, Alex, and Lemke, Douglas. 2011. ‘Unpacking Escalation’. Conflict Management and Peace Science 28(2):111–123.Google Scholar
Carter, David. 2010. ‘The Strategy of Territorial Conflict’. American Journal of Political Science 54(4):969–987.Google Scholar
Caselli, Francesco, Morelli, Massimo, and Rohner, Dominic. 2015. ‘The Geography of Interstate Resource Wars’. Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(1):267–315.Google Scholar
Chong, Dennis, Citrin, Jack, and Conley, Patricia. 2001. ‘When Self-Interest Matters’. Political Psychology 22(3):541–570.Google Scholar
Diehl, Paul. 1999. A Road Map to War: Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Fearon, James. 1995. ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’. International Organization 49(3):379–414.Google Scholar
Fearon, James. 2004. ‘Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?’. Journal of Peace Research 41(3):275–301.Google Scholar
Forsberg, Tuomas. 1996. ‘Explaining Territorial Disputes: From Power Politics to Normative Reasons’. Journal of Peace Research 33(4):433–449.Google Scholar
Fuhrmann, Matthew, and Tir, Jaroslav. 2009. ‘Territorial Dimensions of Enduring Internal Rivalries’. Conflict Management and Peace Science 26(4):307–329.Google Scholar
Gent, Stephen, and Shannon, Megan. 2010. ‘The Effectiveness of International Arbitration and Adjudication: Getting Into a Bind’. The Journal of Politics 72(02):366–380.Google Scholar
Gibler, Douglas M. 2012. The Territorial Peace: Borders, State Development, and International Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ginges, Jeremy, Scott, Atran, Medin, Douglas, and Shikaki, Khalil. 2007. ‘Sacred Bounds on Rational Resolution of Violent Political Conflict’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(18):7357–7360.Google Scholar
Goddard, Stacie. 2006. ‘Uncommon Ground: Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy’. International Organization 60(1):35–68.Google Scholar
Goemans, Hein, and Schultz, Kenneth. 2017. ‘The Politics of Territorial Claims: A Geospatial Approach Applied to Africa’. International Organization 71(1):31–64.Google Scholar
Goertz, Gary, and Diehl, Paul. 1992. Territorial Changes and International Conflict. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel, and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2014. ‘Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments’. Political Analysis 22(1):1–30.Google Scholar
Hartzell, Caroline, and Hoddie, Matthew. 2003. ‘Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-civil War Conflict Management’. American Journal of Political Science 47(2):318–332.Google Scholar
Hassner, Ron. 2003. ‘To Halve and to Hold: Conflicts over Sacred Space and the Problem of Indivisibility’. Security Studies 12(4):1–33.Google Scholar
Hensel, Paul. 2012. ‘Territory: Geography, Contentious Issues, and World Politics’. In John A., Vasquez (eds), What Do We Know About War 2nd ed., 3–26. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hensel, Paul, and Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin. 2005. ‘Issue Indivisibility and Territorial Claims’. GeoJournal 64(4):275–285.Google Scholar
Huth, Paul. 1996. Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kydd, Andrew. 2006. ‘When Can Mediators Build Trust?’. American Political Science Review 100(3):449–462.Google Scholar
Lustick, Ian. 1993. Unsettled States Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Newman, David. 1999. ‘Real Spaces, Symbolic Spaces: Interrelated Notions of Territory in the Arab-Israeli Conflict’. In Paul F., Diehl (eds), A Road Map to War: Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict, 3–34. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Pedahzur, Ami. 2012. The Triumph of Israel’s Radical Right. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Robert. 2006. ‘War as a Commitment Problem’. International Organization 60(1):169–203.Google Scholar
Rynhold, Jonathan, and Waxman, Dov. 2008. ‘Ideological Change and Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza’. Political Science Quarterly 123(1):11–37.Google Scholar
Sears, David, and Funk, Carolyn. 1991. ‘The Role of Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes’. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 24(1):1–91.Google Scholar
Senese, Paul. 2005. ‘Territory, Contiguity, and International Conflict: Assessing a New Joint Explanation’. American Journal of Political Science 49(4):769–779.Google Scholar
Shelef, Nadav. 2016. ‘Unequal Ground: Homelands and Conflict’. International Organization 70(1):33–63.Google Scholar
Tir, Jaroslav. 2010. ‘Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict’. The Journal of Politics 72(2):413–425.Google Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2003. The Geography of Ethnic Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2014. ‘Territory and War’. Journal of Peace Research 51(2):185–198.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, and Weeks, Jessica. 2013. ‘Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace’. American Political Science Review 107(4):849–865.Google Scholar
Vasquez, John. 1993. The War Puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara. 1997. ‘The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement’. International organization 51(3):335–364.Google Scholar
Zellman, Ariel. 2015. ‘Framing Consensus: Evaluating the Narrative Specificity of Territorial Indivisibility’. Journal of Peace Research 52(4):492–507.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Manekin et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/INCWQN
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Manekin et al. supplementary material

Manekin et al. supplementary material 1

Download Manekin et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 697 KB