ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the emergence of hot spots in a state's neighborhood generates uncertainty that, in addition to the presence of a pre-existing conflict of interests, tends to destabilize the process of bilateral bargaining. The chapter argues that hot spots could be considered ingredients in the "black boxes" of bargaining failure. Post-estimation tests confirm that the statistical role of the hot spot in the conflict diffusion process is considerable. The chapter also argues that when states experience localized instability in the form of emerging hot spots of international conflict, this affects the level of uncertainty in their dyadic interactions and, causes bargaining to breakdown. The chapter demonstrates a gap in the extant literature in the form of a lack of a micro-foundational theory of the diffusion of new conflict onsets to nearby geographic locations. The chapter shows that current studies of the diffusion of war rarely integrate evidence of the spatial concentration of conflict within their model specifications.
