Crisis managers but not conflict resolvers: Mediating ethnic intrastate conflict in Africa

Abstract

Instability and conflict within African countries are on the rise. What are the best means for third parties to promote short-term crisis management and long-term conflict resolution in these situations? Often, these two tasks are at odds with one another, and certain approaches to intervention may be more or less effective. This study grapples with these issues by focusing on one particularly difficult set of cases—violent crises that are rooted in ethnic divisions and are part of protracted conflicts in Africa during the post-Cold War era—and one approach to intervention—mediation. We also view mediation as a multidimensional strategic process, and we test a series of hypotheses linking specific mediation styles to various crisis outcomes. The data and analyses reported in this study grew out of a new project named Mediating Intrastate Crises that is focused on uncovering the dynamics of successful mediation efforts during crisis situations at the intrastate level, which are important but understudied phenomena. Our findings indicate that mediators are highly effective at managing crises in the short term, particularly when they adopt a more intrusive approach. However, they have insignificant effects on long-term conflict resolution, showing little ability to stem the tide of recurrent violence.

Resolving Civil Wars before They Start: The UN Security Council and Conflict Prevention in Self-Determination Disputes

“…'Cyprus-review', 1 July (accessed 30 June 2013). 28 E.g., DeRouen and Möller 2013;Gartner 2011;Kydd 2003Kydd , 2006Quinn et al 2013;Regan and Aydin 2006. 29 Fey and Ramsay 2010;Smith and Stam 2003.…”

Determinants of mediation success in post-conflict Bosnia: a focused comparison

“…Kressel's (1972) three-type typology for mediator roles (reflexive, non-directive and directive) paved the way for other similar taxonomies in the international context, such as communication, facilitation and manipulation styles (Zartman and Touval 1985). Research (mostly quantitative) on armed conflict offers other related categories for mediation strategies-communication, procedural and directive-which are also referred to as facilitation, formulation and manipulation (Beardsley et al 2006;Bercovitch and Gartner 2006;Gartner 2014;Quinn et al 2013). Communication and facilitation strategies are generally considered to be 'light' strategies compared to manipulation strategies.…”

The Influence of Directive Strategies on Settlement Duration

“…Directive Strategies pro vide the disputants with a clear and (frequently) fair outcome (Bercovitch & Lee 2003). As a result, it is anticipated that Directive Strategies have the highest mediation effectiveness (Quinn et al 2013) and have process effects that facili tate the creation of especially durable agreements (Bercovitch & Gartner 2006).…”

“…At the same time, a strategy's effectiveness might also be conditional on factors that vary spatially. That is, a mediation strategy might work more effectively with particular types of disputes or particular types of disputants (Quinn et al 2009;Gartner & Tannehill 2008).…”