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One part of our argument pertains to the question of how; the second part dealts
with the question of which state in the dyad is most likely to initiate a challenge.
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Turning back to the question of how, another significant difference visa vi the existing
empirical work on territorial salience that our research design entails relates to case
selection. Whereas previous designs focus on the initiation of militarized disputes, we
focus on whether the state with the higher salience score makes a claim upon the
opponent’s territory. As discussed previously, the Issue Correlates of War definition of
claim does not necessitate the use of force. What is key is that the challenger state
contests the right of its target to sovereignty over the piece of territory the challenger
values. The difference also carries theoretical significance: we posit that focusing on
the set of militarized disputes obscures the key role that salience plays in territorial
disputes. On the one hand, militarized interstate disputes, arise from a variety of claims,
only a subset of which are territorial. On the other hand, territorial disputes are not
equivalent or reducible to the use of force for territorial aims; a challenger state may lay
claim to a salient territory without the use of force. Moreover, territorial salience is not
a sufficient condition for conflict escalation precisely because other variables exist that
prompt states to resort to the use of armed force. An important contribution of this
argument has been the claim that domestic context affects the role of salience in
territorial challenges, in both magnitude and direction.
A second implication that follows from the research agenda proposed in this
paper relates to changes in salience. Previous empirical work relies on a single, static
value of salience to the border territory. The assumption behind this value is that the
border area maintains its value of salience over time. The assumption does not take into
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Initiator here refers to the state that first escalates an existing territorial dispute.
Convention