The Limits of Peace: Third Parties in Civil Wars in Southeast Asia, 1993–2004

At of the end of 2005, Asia had the highest number of active civil war dyads. The number of active dyads in other regions was either low or declining. Africa, in particular, experienced a sharp drop in the number of active dyads from 2001 to 2005. Civil wars in Asia also last longer than wars in other regions. With a high number of warring dyads fighting in long wars, the expectation would be that the region would be the focus of third-party conflict management, but this is not the case. In this article, we use an original data set to take a closer look at this gap in expectations by focusing on third-party efforts in Southeast Asia between 1993 and 2004. Bilateral talks were the most common form of third-party engagement, but mediation has been the most likely form to lead to agreements between warring parties. We conclude the article with a discussion of the policy implications of this research.     

Killing Time: The World Politics of Civil War Duration, 1820–1992

Policymakers often trumpet the potential for third parties to stop the killing associated with civil wars, yet third parties as strategic actors also have incentives to encourage longer civil wars. We argue that in order to assess the influence of third parties on civil war duration, it is necessary to consider the interdependent nature of third party interventions as they are distributed across the set of civil war combatants. We also argue that it is important to consider the geopolitical context in which civil wars occur, rather than focusing solely on characteristics internal to these conflicts. To test our hypotheses about the impact of third parties and geopolitical factors on civil war duration, we rely on event history analysis and a sample of 152 civil wars for the period 1820–1992. We find empirical support for the idea that extremely long civil wars correspond to the equitable distribution of third party interventions—stalemates prolong wars. The analysis also indicates that separatist civil wars and ongoing civil wars in states proximate to the civil war state result in civil wars of longer duration. Finally, we find that when third parties raise the stakes of the conflict by engaging in the use of militarized force against the civil war state, the duration of these conflicts is reduced. In general, our analysis underscores the importance of modeling the interdependent and dynamic aspects of third party intervention as well as the world politics of civil wars when forecasting their duration and formulating policy.     

The Peacekeeping–Peacemaking Dilemma

Peacekeeping has become an increasingly prominent tool for conflict management and there has been an accompanying explosion of scholarly studies on peacekeeping. Yet, such analyses typically ignore the process of getting a peace agreement itself, missing the potential impact that a peacekeeping force might have in facilitating a peace agreement between protagonists. In this paper, we explore among both enduring rivalries and civil wars whether the presence of a peacekeeping force enhances the prospects for gaining an agreement between protagonists. The academic literature suggests opposing logics: one suggesting the desirability of peacekeeping forces while the other implies that they may be counterproductive. We consider whether the presence of peacekeeping enhances or inhibits mediation and negotiation attempts. We also explore whether the success rates for international mediation and negotiation efforts in those conflicts are affected by the presence of peacekeeping forces. Our results suggest support for the pessimistic view of peacekeeping as it discourages diplomatic efforts and decreases the likelihood of achieving a settlement, although the results are clearer for interstate conflict than for civil wars.     

Incentives for Talking: Accepting Mediation in International and Civil Wars

This paper examines the conditions under which warring parties will accept an outside party's offer to mediate. Specifically, we explore variation in the incentives for accepting third-party offers in interstate conflicts as compared to civil wars. We argue that since mediation in civil wars transfers legitimacy to the non-state actor and can generate a precedent of exceptions to the norm of sovereignty, the political cost associated with accepting international mediation will be substantially higher in civil wars compared to international conflicts. States should therefore only accept mediation in the most serious disputes, or when the costs of legitimizing an opponent are outweighed by the benefits of conflict resolution. Building on this theoretical reasoning, the paper analyzes the implications of differences in incentive structures between inter- and intrastate conflicts for offer and acceptance of mediation. We find an empirical discrepancy between interstate and civil wars in regard to demand-side (acceptance) of mediation, and to a somewhat lesser extent the supply-side (offer) of international mediation. In line with our argument, we find that the historical ties between the potential intermediary and at least one of the disputants play different roles in regard to acceptance of mediation in interstate compared to civil wars. This is important to take into consideration in the emerging debate on mediation bias.     

The Long‐Term Effectiveness of Mediating Workplace Conflicts

In this study, we explore the long‐term effectiveness of the mediation of hierarchical workplace conflicts by comparing and analyzing participants’ perceptions of short‐term and long‐term mediation effectiveness. Specifically, we surveyed supervisors and subordinates to determine the extent to which they perceive mediation to be effective one year after the conclusion of the process. In this study, we distinguish between mediations that result in a continuing employment relationship versus exit mediations, which occur when employees end their employment. We collected data from real workplace mediation cases in the Netherlands. Our results show a general positive relationship between short‐term and long‐term mediation outcomes. Supervisors and subordinates, however, perceive the long‐term outcomes somewhat differently, with supervisors perceiving greater compliance with the agreement than did subordinates after one year. We found no significant difference in perceptions of long‐term effectiveness between exit and nonexit mediations. In the article, we discuss the implications of our findings for mediation theory and practice.     

Orchestrating peace in South Sudan: exploring the effectiveness of the European Union’s mediation support

ABSTRACT

Previous research has primarily focused on the EU’s high-profile involvement as direct mediator in peace negotiations. Conversely, less attention has been devoted to the EU’s support to third parties’ mediation efforts, which is a significant component of its mediation activities. Addressing this research gap, this article develops a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of EU mediation support, identifying key mediation support techniques and the conditions for their success. In terms of mediation support techniques, the EU may rely on “endorsement”, “coordination”, “assistance”, and “lending leverage” to empower and steer third party mediators in line with its mediation objectives and values. We illustrate the utility of the conceptual framework for the EU’s support to IGAD in mediating in South Sudan’s civil war. We find that the EU has contributed significantly to IGAD’s empowerment in terms of endorsement, coordination, assistance, and lending leverage. Simultaneously, our analysis also points to important challenges in the EU-IGAD relationship, which relate to challenges concerning strategic engagement with IGAD’s internal politics that are marked by diverging interests and ties of its member states to the conflict parties.     

A Conceptual Typology of Kin‐State Mediation

In this article, I argue that kin states can play major roles in international mediation processes involving their kin communities. Although kin states may be naturally biased toward their kin, kin states are sometimes actively involved in mediation processes and such involvement is even encouraged by third‐party mediators. In this study, I divide the various roles assumed by kin states in mediation into four main conceptual categories: promoter, quasi‐mediator, powerbroker, and enforcer. My analysis presumes that a kin state can use its close ties with its kin community to make third‐party mediation more successful. I support and illustrate this model using cases of kin‐state involvement in peace processes and examine both the benefits and complications that kin‐state mediation can entail. This study contributes to scholarship examining the effectiveness of biased mediators. I conclude that the role a kin state assumes in a mediation is often context‐dependent, but that third‐party mediators and the international community can use their leverage over kin states to improve the peace process.     

Lincoln's Gamble: Fear of Intervention and the Onset of the American Civil War

Few studies consider how civil war onset can be influenced by third parties and by the belligerents’ perceptions of third party actions. I show that the American Civil War, a war largely ignored by civil war scholars, sheds insights into how anticipation of third party intervention influences the decision-making process within the target state and how the possibility of third party intervention can influence the onset and escalation of civil war. The American Civil War is an especially interesting case for exploring the role of third parties in civil war initiation since, unlike most cases considered by the existing civil war literature, the American Civil War is an instance of nonintervention: the third parties (the European powers in this case) mattered despite staying out of the conflict. Specifically, I argue that fear of foreign recognition (particularly by the British) played an underappreciated (if not the decisive) role in the earliest stages of the American Civil War by influencing Lincoln's decision to authorize the first major battle of the war at Manassas Junction, Virginia.     

Two Paths to Peace: Contrasting George Mitchell in Northern Ireland with Richard Holbrooke in Bosnia–Herzegovina

At first glance, one might expect great similarities between the approaches of two U.S. third parties, both white male Democrats, who acted during the 1990s to resolve two ethnic and religious-based conflicts in Europe. Yet, although each man achieved a substantial measure of success, at least in the short to medium term, a closer comparison of their approaches along a number of strategic dimensions serves to illustrate dramatic differences in the ways and means of third party actions. This article details such a comparison, and in the process sharpens the existing literature on international mediation and calls into question easy generalizations about the determinants of success by third parties in these kinds of conflicts.     

Toward High‐Quality Divorce Agreements: The Influence of Facilitative Professionals

Studies have reported that mediation has higher settlement rates than litigation. The quality of these agreements as experienced by the parties as well as the processes that contribute to this subjective experience remains underexamined, however. In a large, representative, and multidisciplinary study of divorcing couples, we studied the relationship between the practices of lawyers and mediators and the quality of agreements experienced by their clients. We used multiple regression analysis to reveal that divorce mediation is significantly more likely than litigation to produce high‐quality divorce settlements. Furthermore, we found that high‐quality divorce agreements were more likely to occur when mediators and lawyers were perceived to have worked facilitatively. In addition, we found that pre‐divorce conflict levels were inversely correlated with the quality of agreements. Which party initiated the divorce, the parties' gender, and the type of legal divorce did not explain variances in the quality of the agreements. In this article, we also discuss the training and practice implications of our findings.     

Third-Party Intermediaries and Negotiated Settlements, 1946–2000

Past studies regarding the success and/or failure of conflict management activities have brought about a wide range of results. In this paper we attempt to gain more definitive conclusions about effectiveness by accomplishing two tasks. First, using a basic theoretical framework we identify expectations of efficacy as they relate to differences between states, coalitions, and IGOs. Second, we also examine the utility of different conflict management techniques in an effort to place in greater perspective the effectiveness of mediation, the most utilized technique of third party intermediaries. Using a new dataset on third-party intermediary behavior in militarized disputes from 1946 to 2000, we find that while all conflict managers are useful in assisting belligerents in reaching a negotiated settlement, IGOs are the most effective. Additionally, while mediation is an effective technique to produce settlements, military intermediary actions, such as peacekeeping, are much more useful.     

Selling to Both Sides: The Effects of Major Conventional Weapons Transfers on Civil War Severity and Duration

Civil wars are primarily fought with small and light arms, but the availability of major conventional weapons to states and rebels can alter the nature of the war being fought. This study explores the impact of major conventional weapons transfers on civil war severity and duration. By using a recipient based approach to arms transfers, I find rebel acquisition of major conventional weapons from international sources leads to conflict escalation and deadlier conflicts. State importation of major conventional weapons is associated with longer conflicts. These findings provide researchers a means to account for rebel capabilities in civil war research and policy makers insight to limit the destructiveness of civil wars.     

Strategic rebels: a spatial econometric approach to rebel fighting durations in civil wars

ABSTRACT

Recent research on multi-actor civil wars highlights that rebel organizations condition their conflict behavior on that of other rebel organizations, with competition and free-riding constituting the core theoretical mechanisms. We provide a new actor-centric approach to explicitly model strategic interdependence in multi-actor civil wars. We argue that rebel organizations have incentives to remain mobilized until the end of a conflict to maintain their power to negotiate, power to spoil, power to enforce, and power to protect. This induces strategic complements that dominate duration dynamics in multi-actor conflicts. Based on a network game-theoretic model, we derive a spatial econometric framework that allows for a direct test of strategic interdependence. We find that the estimated duration interdependence is positive but partially offset in secessionist conflicts where the public goods nature of the incompatibility also induces strategic substitution effects.     

A Helping Hand? The Moderating Role of Leaders' Conflict Management Behavior on the Conflict–Stress Relationship of Employees

Interpersonal conflict between colleagues within organizations negatively affects employee well‐being (e.g., stress). It is unclear how leaders' third‐party conflict management behaviors influence the relationship between employee conflict and well‐being. In this study, we examine the effects of leaders' perceived conflict management behaviors on the relationship between relationship, task, and process conflicts and the conflict‐related stress (as a measure of well‐being) that employees experience. We tested our expectations using a survey of 145 employees of an insurance company in the Netherlands. The results confirmed our expectations that the perception that leaders engaged in third‐party forcing behavior and avoiding behavior amplified the effects of conflict on conflict‐related stress. Furthermore, we found that leaders' third‐party problem‐solving behavior had a buffering effect on the association between relationship conflict and conflict‐related stress. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

International Mediation and Social Networks: The Importance of Indirect Ties

This study extends the previous literature on actors' incentives in conflict management by examining how direct and indirect links between fighting parties influence the prospects for mediation onset from a social network perspective. The paper argues, contrary to existing research, that direct links, i.e., bilateral ties between warring parties, do not notably increase the likelihood of mediation. Rather, indirect links, i.e., ties that connect two states via one or more than one third party to each other, are more likely to determine whether a conflict sees mediation. Although direct links can indicate mutual interests, shared preferences, and decreased uncertainty between the warring parties, these ties either lose importance or become cut off when states enter a conflict. By contrast, indirect ties create a social network that involves outside parties in the dispute process, and indirect ties increase the exchange of information between belligerents and potential mediators and the chances that third parties will have a vital interest in intervention. My empirical analysis using conflict and social network data in 1946–1995 provides strong support for the theory.     

Dimensions of Chinese foreign conflict and cooperation: A research note

Key mediation attributes, such as mediating actors, the strategy they choose, and previous mediation experiences, are widely thought to influence the nature of a conflict management outcome. But how and when these features shape outcomes is not a straightforward matter, and a standard analysis of these factors does not lead to their widely anticipated results. Why? We develop a new analytical framework that argues that a dispute's intensity alters the conflict management processes. Furthermore, in order to observe this variation, we also need to expand the traditional, dichotomous notion of conflict management outcomes (success or failure) to include a fuller range of observed results. Using the most recent International Conflict Management data set and our new analytical framework, we analyze the effect on conflict management outcome of mediator (a) identity, (b) strategy and (c) history. We find that directive strategies and international mediators are effective in resolving high intensity conflicts, procedural strategies and regional mediators are effective in resolving low intensity conflicts, and that mediation history always affects resolution. Our results have implications for both the study and practice of international dispute mediation.     

Why Do Peace Negotiations Succeed or Fail? Legal Commitment,Transparency, and Inclusion during Peace Negotiations in Colombia (2012–2016) and Turkey (2012–2015)

This article examines the ways in which the negotiation framework—i.e., the legal guarantees, information management mechanism, and degree of inclusivity in peace negotiations—shapes the likelihood of concluding a peace agreement. Codifying the peace negotiations in law, publicizing information about the content of negotiations, and including mediators and civil society actors in peace talks is likely to increase a government's short‐term costs. However, doing so alleviates the adversaries' information asymmetry and commitment problems, sets guidelines to insure the process against exogenous shocks, and increases the number of actors taking part in conflict management. Comparing the recent peace negotiations to end intrastate wars in Colombia and Turkey, this article argues that a legalized, public, and inclusive framework made a peace agreement possible in Colombia, while the lack of such a framework caused Turkey's peace talks to fail.     

Managerial Mediation Competency: A Mixed‐Method Study

Managerial conflict resolution skills such as mediation have often been poorly defined and measured. We used a mixed‐method design to develop a managerial mediation competency scale. In our first study, we used semistructured interviews to identify managerial mediation skills and attitudes, from which we derived a framework for measuring managerial mediation competency. In our second study, we developed scale items and used a quantitative survey to test the scale's psychometric qualities and to gain insight into the theoretical structure of managerial mediation competency. Our managerial mediation competency scale can be used in research questionnaires or organizational surveys as a training, research, and theory development tool.     

Insight Mediation: A Learning-Centered Mediation Model

Insight mediation is the name we have given to the model of mediation that is taught and practiced at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The name has evolved from our efforts to situate the model in relation to the transformative and narrative styles of mediation. Drawing upon the work of Canadian philosopher Bernard Lonergan and his theory of insight, mediators practicing this model seek direct and inverse insights into what the conflict means to each party by discovering what each party cares about and how that threatens the other party. Insights shift attitudes and create space for collective action. The authors argue that coming to recognize the theoretical underpinnings of our practice helps us become better practitioners.     

Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?

International organizations (IOs) take on an increasing share of civil war mediation around the world. The determinants of IO mediation effectiveness remain poorly understood, partly because prior research has not adequately captured the institutional heterogeneity of peace-brokering IOs. To explore how mediation effectiveness depends on institutional variation, I combine newly gathered data on the design of 13 peace-brokering IOs with existing data on 109 civil war mediation episodes in the 1975-2004 period. I find that IOs with institutionalized capabilities to deploy field missions, such as peacekeeping operations, outperform other IOs as mediators of civil wars, whereas information-gathering capacity does not yield a significant advantage. The results suggest that IO enforcement assistance has a forward-looking effect: the ability to credibly signal, ex ante, that peacekeeping or monitoring forces will be deployed to enforce an agreement, helps IOs shape negotiations long before forces are actually deployed. Reaffirming the credible commitment theory of conflict resolution, the study demonstrates that there is considerable variation among external guarantors, which explains why some IOs can shift civil war disputants away from violent bargaining strategies whereas other cannot.