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From Territorial Claim to War: Timing, Causation, and the Steps-to-War

The steps-to-war thesis has become one of the dominant frameworks for explaining war in the discipline. Substantial testing has supported the empirical claims of the argument, but key theoretical questions remain. These primarily have to do with the question of endogeneity. While the steps-to-war thesis argues that each step increases the probability of war, others have argued that you might find the same empirical relationships in cases where war was anticipated, or that rivalry is the underlying causal factor for both the different variables and war itself. This study addresses these critical challenges by examining the historic timing of the steps to war in territorial claims from 1919–1995 to determine whether their sequencing supports the causal argument of the steps-to-war thesis or the various challenges to it. The results indicate that there are clear categorical differences in territorial claims that result in war, and discusses the relevant theoretical implications.