Although evidence shows that territorial disputes fundamentally shape relations among states, we know surprisingly little about when territorial claims are made. We argue that revisionist states have incentives to make territorial claims when the great powers that manage the system are in crisis. We identify five main sources of systemic instability and develop measures of each of them, demonstrating that the majority of territorial claims in Europe are drawn at times when regional great powers are embroiled in crisis, for example, 1848 or 1870 during the nineteenth century. The claims that emerge at these times are not necessarily among states involved in the crises that generated turmoil (e.g., Prussia and France in 1870). We use a newly developed spatial measure of historical boundary precedents in Europe from 1650 to 1790 to demonstrate that the effect of this known spatial correlate of where claims are drawn matters only when the European system is in crisis. We further demonstrate that this claim-timing pattern is general to the global system of states. In the appendix we corroborate our explanation of our findings with a detailed case study of the territorial claims that led to the contemporary Italian state's formation.

中文翻译：

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系统性不稳定与边界争端的出现

尽管有证据表明领土争端从根本上影响了国家之间的关系，但我们对何时提出领土主张却知之甚少。我们认为，当管理该体系的大国陷入危机时，修正主义国家有动机提出领土主张。我们确定了系统性不稳定的五个主要来源并制定了每个来源的措施，表明欧洲的大多数领土主张都是在区域大国陷入危机的时候提出的，例如 1848 年或 1870 年在 19 世纪。在这些时候出现的主张并不一定出现在卷入引发动荡的危机的国家中（例如，1870 年的普鲁士和法国）。我们使用新开发的对 1650 年至 1790 年欧洲历史边界先例的空间测量来证明，只有在欧洲体系处于危机中时，这种已知的索赔提出地点的空间相关性的影响才重要。我们进一步证明，这种索赔时间模式对于全球国家体系是普遍的。在附录中，我们通过对导致当代意大利国家形成的领土主张的详细案例研究来证实我们对研究结果的解释。