Terminated or Just Interrupted? How the End of a Rivalry Plants the Seeds for Future Conflict

Abstract

Objective The objectives of the study were to explain why some interstate rivalries recur while others remain terminated. We argue that the recurrence is largely contingent on the congruence between the first rivalry's military outcome and the resulting political settlement as well as the intensity of the original rivalry. Methods Our hypotheses are tested using a data set of interstate rivalries from 1816 to 2001. We use a logistic regression to examine which rivalries recur. As a robustness check, we use an event history model to test the effect of factors that change after the initial rivalry. Results Our results indicated that a rivalry with an incongruent termination is nearly three times more likely to recur than one where the settlement reflects the preceding outcome, and more intense rivalries recur more than twice as frequently as their less intense counterparts. Conclusion Whether a rivalry recurs is strongly conditioned by how it concludes, and not by later events after the initial termination.

Caricaturing the enemy

“…The issue becomes the 'Other', and the conflict a zero-sum game. Rivalry thus is a condition that fosters the use of force to resolve issues, and constricts the available bargaining space, while also promoting a narrative of enmity among the involved populations, making attempts to overcome and terminate a rivalry hard (Rudkevich et al 2013). The rivalry argument is not based on the pre-existence of feelings of animosity between two states.…”