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an all-or-nothing venture, so peaceful compromise, division, or land-sharing are difficult if not
impossible. The benefits-driven leader will have an easier time convincing the people that militarized
action is the only alternative offering access to the land; in contrast, it is comparatively easier to
compromise over tangibly-valued lands, so other, non-violent approaches can be viewed as viable.
In comparison, from the perspective of the leader of the secessionist state who is contemplating
whether to use force to redraw the secession-created map, the key difference is that his/her country has
not lost land due to the secession. Instead, to receive the benefits of territorial conquest the leader focuses
on obtaining even more land; the target of the leader’s desire can be either the rump state or another
secessionist country. An argument could be made that the leader’s opportunity to profit from additional
territorial gains may be limited. Through the secession that established it as a new, independent country,
the secessionist state has already received large swaths of territory; this has decreased substantially the
total value of the land the secessionists have wanted prior to the secession. In turn, this would make the
leader’s willingness to become involved in future conflict over territory low. Yet, this may not be the
case in two situations. First, through the secession the secessionist state obtained only a portion of the
land it hoped to acquire. Second, the secessionist state gained only a segment of the intangibly-valued
land. Because the intangibly valued territory is likely to be perceived as indivisible (Newman, 1999;
Diehl, 1999), partial gains are not likely to decrease the value of the remaining territory to a great extent.
The leader can thus profit if the secession failed to resolve the territorial dispute that motivated the
secession to the country’s satisfaction. In short, similarly to the rump state’s leader, the secessionist
state’s leader is motivated to use force by the benefits of conquering territory his/her constituents find
valuable. The above discussion leads to the following hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1 (H-1): SISs involved in territorial deputes with one another will be more likely to
experience militarized conflict than SISs with no territorial disputes.
H-2: SISs with territorial disputes involving intangibly valued land will be more likely to
experience militarized conflict over territory than SISs with territorial disputes involving
tangibly valued land.
Convention