ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book responds to a variety of general puzzles identified by anecdotal evidence and popular commentary on the subject of international conflicts. The terms 'spatial heterogeneity' and 'spatial dependence' are used to organize the chapter's approach to answering a series of questions regarding the geographic causes, clustering, and consequences of international conflict. A minority of studies incorporate more fine-tuned measures and tests of the spatiality of international conflict than is typical in the quantitative study of international relations (QIR). The book uses mapped images of the global distribution of international disputes at both the location- and state-venue-levels of analysis to demonstrate the visual appearance of clustering. It begins the process of uncovering the empirical sources of conflict hot spots. It also focuses upon identifying the geographic and political conditions that precipitate the development of conflict hot spots at the host state-level of analysis.
