The territorial taboo: Explaining the public aversion to negotiations in the Ukraine war support coalition

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dc.contributor.authorToal, Gerarden
dc.date.accessioned2025-02-06T13:56:42Zen
dc.date.available2025-02-06T13:56:42Zen
dc.date.issued2024-08-30en
dc.description.abstractDespite severe and mounting war costs, many in the international coalition supporting Ukraine have publicly expressed strong aversion to negotiations with Russia, and Ukrainian territorial concessions, to end the war. What explains this aversion to negotiations and seeming taboo on territorial concessions? This commentary, drawing particularly on US policy debate, suggests that proclaimed sacred values helps explain this disposition. Ukraine’s war support network is a discursive coalition bound together by three shared narratives about the war and universal values. Stories about international law and territorial integrity, about war crimes and genocide, and about freedom and democracy, render talk about territorial concessions to Russia, as the aggressor state, taboo in different ways. Psychological factors, from commitment problems to hawkish biases, bolster this taboo. The Gaza war, however, has exposed Western sacred values as geographically limited. The territorial taboo disguises tragic trade-offs and the enormous costs of Ukraine’s fight, burdening the country with an unwinnable mission. Any settlement of the war is likely to see the territorial taboo abandoned, in de facto if not de jure terms.en
dc.description.versionAccepted versionen
dc.format.extentPages 1108-1127en
dc.format.extent20 page(s)en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241268335en
dc.identifier.eissn2399-6552en
dc.identifier.issn2399-6544en
dc.identifier.issue7en
dc.identifier.orcidToal, Gerard [0000-0002-9110-458X]en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10919/124507en
dc.identifier.volume42en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSageen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectUkraineen
dc.subjectterritoryen
dc.subjectaversionen
dc.subjectUSen
dc.subjectstorylinesen
dc.subjectsacred valuesen
dc.subjecttragic trade-offsen
dc.titleThe territorial taboo: Explaining the public aversion to negotiations in the Ukraine war support coalitionen
dc.title.serialEnvironment and Planning C: Politics and Spaceen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
dc.type.otherArticleen
dc.type.otherJournalen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Techen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/All T&R Facultyen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciencesen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciences/CLAHS T&R Facultyen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciences/School of Public and International Affairsen

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