Prof. Kathleen Powers from Dartmouth College will speak at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar.

Summary/Abstract:
This paper explores a basic question about territorial conflicts: to what extent are actors motivated by the desire to possess the land? Prior research emphasizes that disputed territory holds tangible value such as natural resources and intangible value such as perceptions that it is part of a national homeland. However, it is possible that people do not treasure the land itself so much as they desire not to lose it to an adversary. We theorize that potentially losing it to another actor adds ‘competition value’ to territory. We investigate these distinct motives with a survey experiment on Japanese attitudes toward the potential loss of the Senkaku Islands. Do the Japanese view losing these islands to China as significantly more detrimental for Japan than losing the islands because they submerge after a geological event? Or are the islands themselves what matters? We present an experimental design and pre-analysis plan to answer this question.