Anticipating mediated talks
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Author | Constantin Ruhe |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343314558101 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
Anticipating mediated talks: Predicting the
timing of mediation with disaggregated
conflict dynamics
Constantin Ruhe
Graduate School of Decision Sciences, University of Konstanz
Abstract
Research on mediation has shown that mediation can be an effective conflict management tool to contain intrastate
conflicts, prevent escalation of low intensity conflicts, and foster de-escalation. But can ripe moments for conflict
prevention effectively be anticipated? This article argues that the short-term conflict history provides a good predictor
of the probability of mediation onset in low-intensity conflicts. It builds on an expected utility theory of mediation
and states that conflict intensity is a primary indicator of whether a window of opportunity for mediation exists.
Thereby, the article asserts that the direction of the effect is conditional on the respective probability of victory of
each conflict party. The theory postulates that high conflict intensity only increases the probability of mediation
onset when neither side is likely to prevail militarily. If one of the conflict parties has a high chance of a military
success, then it will not regard conflict intensity as costly, since it can expect to impose these costs on its opponent.
Under these circumstances the conflict parties will not be willing to engage in mediation. The article presents empiri-
cal support for this proposition. It uses temporally disaggregated data of low-intensity African conflicts from 1993 to
2004 and demonstrates that the theoretically motivated model predicts mediation onset with high accuracy. The
results show that conflict dynamics are highly relevant covariates in predicting mediation. This selection process
should be considered when the impact of mediation is evaluated.
Keywords
intrastate conflict, mediation, prediction, preventive diplomacy
Introduction
Research on mediation has shown that mediation can be
an effective conflict management tool to contain intras-
tate conflicts, prevent escalation, and foster de-escalation
of low intensity conflicts (cf. Melander, Mo
¨ller & O
¨berg,
2009; DeRouen & Mo
¨ller, 2013; Gurses, Rost &
McLeod, 2008). In line with this scholarly assessment,
early conflict mediation is a key tool in the United
Nations’ aim for preventive diplomacy (United Nations,
2011). Yet, in spite of this positive record, conflict par-
ties agree to attempt mediation only in a limited number
of conflicts. Mediation research explains this finding and
prominently states that conflicts need to enter a mutually
hurting stalemate in order to be ripe for mediation (cf.
Zartman, 1995, 2001). Although this conclusion has
found its way into practical guidelines of mediators
(e.g. Zartman & de Soto, 2010), it remains unclear if
and how well we can predict the precise timing of med-
iation and anticipate windows of opportunity for this
form of preventive diplomacy. This article addresses this
question. It proposes a theoretically derived, statistical
model which relies on disaggregated conflict event data
and predicts mediation onset in low-intensity conflict.
Most existing, quantitative work on mediation has
explained the propensity of mediation based on struc-
tural variables. Thereby, these works relied on highly
aggregated, slowly changing measures as proxies of con-
flict characteristics, which hardly pick up conflict evolu-
tion. Only a single paper has examined how well
Corresponding author:
constantin.ruhe@uni-konstanz.de
Journal of Peace Research
2015, Vol. 52(2) 243–257
ªThe Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343314558101
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