Quick Facts

Random facts about the patterns in conflicts:

Duration
For conflicts that began and ended after 1945 (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Fearon 2004):

• The median duration of interstate wars was less than 3 months.
• The median duration of civil wars was about 7 years. 

End

Consistent through different coders (Pillar 1983; Stedman 1991; Licklider 1995; Walter 1997):

• Military victory is more common than negotiated settlement in civil wars.
• Negotiated settlement is more common than military victory in interstate wars. 
• Pillar: about two-thirds of interstate wars end in negotiated settlements; about two thirds of intrastate wars end in military victory.

• Between 1940 and 1990, 42 percent of civil wars (seventeen out of forty-one) experienced some form of formal peace negotiation, and 94 percent of these cases drafted at least a cease-fire accord (Walter 1997).

Arthur A. Stein. 1982. When Misperception Matters

Arthur A. Stein, “When Misperception Matters,” World Politics 34, 4 (July 1982), pp. 505-526.

Summary by David

Question: What impact does misperception have on the occurrence of war?

Main point: [M]isperception does not always affect an actor's choices or determine outcome …when misperception does have such effects, it is in a narrow range of circumstances; and that misperception can lead to cooperation as well as to conflict

Hein Goemans. 2006. Bounded Communities: Territoriality, Territorial Attachment, and Conflict

Hein Goemans, “Bounded Communities: Territoriality, Territorial Attachment, and Conflict,” in Miles Kahler and Barbara Walter, eds., Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 25-61.

Homeland is specified by territory rather than language, cultural, ethnic, or other ties. Such a definition allows coordination between the leaders and subjects of a homeland to facilitate a collective defense. The specification of a homeland relies on focal principles with wide applicability that are simple enough to be interpreted by all concerned. The focal principles chosen depend first on enforcement cost, a leader's self-interested motives, contingencies that may arise, and common knowledge such as historical information.

Homeland defined by focal principles should be indivisible. States should be willing to claim and fight for territory fitting its focal principles. Newly drawn boundaries should follow focal principles rather than military conquest.