Despite much attention to geography within political science in the past decade, the two disciplines have not always coexisted peacefully. Indeed, geographers may well consider the incorporation of spatial themes within political science to be largely superficial, in that they are often based on distances, state size, or proximity—variables that have more to do with geometry than with human and physical geography. This is no more obvious than in the application of geography to conflict studies, where there has been a distinct “spatial turn” over the last two decades. Alex Braithwaite's book on conflict hot spots represents both the promises and drawbacks of the geometric approaches to violence: It is clearly written to impart more practical than theoretical knowledge about the use of “geographic techniques” in studying international disputes, and its guiding hypotheses are largely based on observation over investigation (e.g., Hypothesis 2.7: Conflict hot spots are more likely to be located in states with multiple political boundaries). But it does add to the literature on how to incorporate space into international conflict studies, specifically in its mapping and analysis of Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) patterns.

The author's main argument is that the world hosts several conflict hot spots—defined as spatial and temporal concentrations of conflict events—and that it is possible to predict their occurrence. These are critical to uncover as they influence the process of bargaining between states that disagree over some important issue. It remains unclear throughout the book whether this is process based or place based, or put another way, does “a place” matter (in an absolute sense) over “a location” (in a relative sense)? Braithwaite does not answer this question directly, but asks in his introduction: “[A]re conflicts really located non-randomly?” One might ask who ever thought that conflict was a random process.

Nonetheless, the author does mean to uncover which processes create hot spots where conflict rates are the “exception to global politics.” He reconfirms the geographic component of the democratic peace, and proves that major powers dictate the location of violence, while weaker powers often fight on their own territory. His additional contributions are heavily based on political regime types and geopolitical endowments (i.e., resources). The conclusions seem to suggest that fighting occurs where and when there are important things to fight over, unless a state's political relationships are of equal or greater importance. The analysis does not confirm the “resource argument” (the model uses state diamond deposits, and may be insignificant because it is the classic red herring of conflict studies). Finally, states in dangerous neighborhoods experience higher rates of conflict initiation and vulnerability. Despite notes referring to the higher rates of conflict initiation of hot spot states that seek to “redress” imbalances, such assumptions are not tested with country-specific evidence.

Braithwaite relies on both spatial and econometric methods for his analyses. On the spatial side, these include mapping MID points and aggregating state polygons from 1816–2001; and using standard Geographic Information Systems (GIS) point patterns and nearest neighbor statistics to observe the ratio of the observed mean distance of points to the possible mean distance. From this analysis, two trends are uncovered: the incredible increase in MID by year over the selected time period and the temporal dependence across points. There is little mention of collection bias in early data. Statistical tools for detecting dependence are liberally used to confirm clusters. From that point, Braithwaite collects national-level variables on the usual suspects: democracy, GDP, trade, distances from hot spots, presence of hot spots, and so on. However, barring their geographic location, no specific information or data about hot-spot characteristics are included in any model. From the maps, it seems that hot-spots are located largely in border regions. This is perhaps an interesting future direction of the study, as there are surely differences in the economic, social, and political characteristics of the specific parts of states that are affected by war. Human geographers have extensively studied borders and their characteristics, and indeed, early MID geography studies in political science suggested this direction in conflict studies.

Perhaps most lacking in Braithwaite's book is a sense of subject relevance: The neighborhood effects and characteristics of MIDs seems a subject most suited for previous decades of conflict research. This is largely evident in the citations in the book: In more than 230 citations, 10% are after 2000 and 5% after 2005. The models do not include any international conflict past 2001, and no evidence of domestic conflict. The author does identify the extensive literature on spatial dependence and heterogeneity of conflict in both geography and political science that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. The notion of conflict hot spots and their emergence and impact in international politics was extensively discussed through Saul B. Cohen's “shatterbelts” in the early 1980s (see Saul B. Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided, 2d ed., 1982). Following several excellent discussions of “opportunity and willingness,” Kristian Gleditsch's All International Politics Is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization (2002) investigated these concepts deeply, creating a rigorous theoretical framework for the ways in which progression in international politics cast the geography of violence (and peace).

In comparison, Braithwaite's text does not contribute the same explanatory power to the geography of conflict, due in part to the basic hypotheses that seem to ignore regional politics in favor of superficial explanations centered on borders, resources, and broad definitions of democracy. It does not provide a new direction in the subcategory of international conflict research. Further, the tools used in the book (mainly GIS and applications for spatial clustering) are useful for uncovering a process; the methods are not answers in themselves. This is perhaps the most obvious disconnect between quantitative political geography and political science: The “where” is useful only insofar as it elucidates the complexity of “why.”