Between land and sea: spaces and conflict intensity

Between land and sea: spaces and conflict intensity. Territory Politics Governance. Do different levels of sovereignty affect the intensity of international conflicts that unfold there? The paper answers this question by comparing territorial conflicts between Israel and Lebanon in two spaces: land and sea. These spaces are subject to different levels of sovereignty. On land, sovereignty is understood to be full and indivisible. In the portion of the sea under dispute between Israel and Lebanon–the exclusive economic zone–sovereignty is only partial and refers primarily to the right to extract resources. The paper concludes that a partial form of sovereignty is indeed associated with a less intense conflict.