The bargaining model of war assumes that two states compete over an issue. In the model, each side is assumed to be willing to pay a certain fixed price to obtain the issue under dispute and has fixed level of capabilities to achieve these objectives. Because the conflicts are costly, states will desire to end their conflicts as soon as possible, suggesting that once they know the likely outcome of the conflict, they will divide the issue along these lines. States are kept from ending their conflicts by one of three problems. Either states are unable to effectively communicate the price they are willing to pay and the capabilities that they possess to obtain the issuethe information problem, they are concerned that a future shift in capabilities will render any agreement reached in the present ineffectualthe commitment problem, or the issue over which the states are competing over cannot be dividedthe problem of an indivisible issue (Fearon 1995). In this dissertation, I argue, that while Fearon is correct to assert that an agreement over an indivisible issue can be reached through the introduction of a side payment, this does not mean that the presence of an indivisible issue(s) is unproblematic for the bargaining process. Indivisible issues can still impede the ability of states to come to a conflict-ending agreement. Specifically, I suggest that scholars must consider more than just the divisibility of an issue, but scholars should also consider the value of the issue. As the value of the issue under dispute increases, the more difficult it will be for the state to find, or be willing to offer, an appropriate side-payment. This suggests that the more valuable the indivisible issue under dispute, the more difficult it will be to overcome the problems associated with issue indivisibility. I apply these insights to the study of war and territorial dispute duration as well as exploring the role of highly salient indivisible issues as a means of sending a costly signal of resolve