Third-Party Conflict Management and the Willingness to Make Concessions

Abstract

Third-party conflict management, particularly legal dispute resolution (arbitration and adjudication) and mediation, can help improve the willingness of disputants to make asymmetric concessions by ameliorating commitment problems and providing political cover. In both regards, and especially pertaining to commitment problems, mediation has substantial limitations when compared to legal dispute resolution. We develop these arguments and test the observable implications on the Issue Correlates of War data. To get traction on the mechanisms at work, we distinguish between challenger concessions and defender concessions, positing that challenger concessions face the primary hurdle of political cover while defender concessions face the primary hurdle of commitment problems. We find that legal dispute resolution strongly increases the propensity for concessions by both challengers and targets, even major asymmetric concessions. Mediation, on the other hand, only helps increase minor challenger concessions. Also consistent with expectations, mediation best enables asymmetric challenger concessions in the highly salient cases that need the most political cover, and legal dispute resolution best enables asymmetric concessions when there has been a history of failed conflict management attempts that perpetuate mistrust.

Gendered preferences: How women’s inclusion in society shapes negotiation occurrence in intrastate conflicts

“…Why and how do disputants manage intrastate conflict? Conflict management research largely focuses on conflict characteristics and dynamics such as the balance of power, relative rebel strength, number of actors, conflict costs and the power to hurt, and the role of external parties in bringing about negotiations and mediations (Ghosn, 2010;Beardsley & Lo, 2014;Greig, 2014;Thomas, 2014;Kaplow, 2016). These conflict dynamics are frequently presented as gender-neutral.…”

Mediation in the shadow of an audience: How third parties use secrecy and agenda-setting to broker settlements

“…Research also finds evidence that domestic politics are important. Scholars argue that mediation provides political cover that enables leaders under pressure to enter mediation and accept mediated agreements (Beardsley, 2010, 2011; Beardsley and Lo, 2013; Brown and Marcum, 2011). Beardsley (2010) found that mediation is more likely for leaders with domestic audience costs , i.e.…”

“…when a leader will be punished for backing down to an enemy. Beardsley and Lo (2013) found that audience costs make asymmetric concessions more likely in mediation. Melin (2013) noted that mediation’s face-saving helped leaders accept ‘unacceptable terms in Sinai (1974), El Salvador (1988), and Mozambique (1992)’ (p. 87).…”

Strategic forum selection and compliance in interstate dispute resolution

“…On the other hand, transparency also reduces political cover. A third party facilitating transparent negotiations will find it more difficult to claim responsibility for concessions-concessions that are even more important to domestic opposition groups than in less salient issues (Beardsley and Lo, 2014). Leaders managing contentious issues-that also hope to retain power-prefer management fora that mitigate audience costs to those that improve compliance monitoring.…”