1
Introduction
It is the most intuitive of mechanisms that accounts for much of international conflict. If an issue
appears indivisible, a negotiated settlement becomes impossible: when there is no division of an issue
acceptable to all sides in a conflict, the range of settlements disappears, and negotiations degenerate into
an all-or-nothing game. As a result, peaceful resolution of the dispute becomes increasingly difficult,
leaving actors more likely to solve their grievances through war.
1
We do not need to look very far to find examples of indivisible issues. In international relations,
much attention has been paid to the indivisibility of territory.
2
In contemporary Jerusalem, for instance,
many Israelis “insist that a united Jerusalem will be the eternal capital of the Jewish state,” whereas
Palestinian officials contend that any deal that fails to include sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque and the
Dome of the Rock is “an unacceptable compromise…[that] will make their blood boil.”
3
Similarly, the
inability of India and Pakistan to compromise over Kashmir has dramatically increased tensions between
these two nuclear powers.
Territory, moreover, is not alone in its indivisibility; issue indivisibility pervades social and
political life. The Thirty Year’s War was driven by the indivisibility of religion: neither Protestants nor
Catholics were willing to abandon claims to religious authority, even at the cost of destroying a chance at
compromise.
4
Similarly, the Franco-Prussian war erupted, in part, over the Hohenzollern succession and
the indivisibility of the Spanish throne. In the domestic sphere, debates over ethnic politics and abortion
threaten the delicate balance between compromise and contestation that underpins liberal democracies.
5
Divorcing couples know all too well the indivisibility of a child, and even the most well-intentioned of
1
For accounts of indivisibility as it relates to war, see Fearon 1995, 389-390; Vasquez 1993; Newman, 1999, 16; Pillar 1983;
Walter 2002; Toft 1998, 2002 ; Hassner 2002. On the general impact of indivisible goods on negotiations, see Elster 1989, 67-78;
Coleman 1990; Hirschman 1994. Friedman and Savage 1948; Marshall 1984; Ng 1965.
2
See Walter 2000; Toft 2002; Hassner 2002.
3
Butt 2000.
4
Nexon 2003.
5
Hirschman 1994, 213.
Convention