Bargaining, Bias and Peace Brokers: How Rebels Commit to Peace
| Author | Isak Svensson |
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0022343307075121 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
177
Introduction
A negotiated settlement is one pivotal turning
point in the process from armed conflict to
durable peace. This turning point in conflicts
between governments and rebel groups is
characterized by its asymmetric nature.
When parties in internal armed conflicts
consider signing an agreement and lay down
their weapons, the government stands to relin-
quish authority to the rebels. A peace settle-
ment in an internal armed conflict implies a
transformation of decisionmaking power, or
the right to control force, from the central
authority to the insurgency movements. The
rebels, on the other hand, stand to gain
opportunities – legitimacy, time and access
to official structures – that can be exploited
in the post-settlement future. The rebels may
use their position of increased strength in the
post-settlement future in order to extract fur-
ther concessions or renege on the peace deal.
Hence, in this particular phase of the conflict
process, it is foremost the rebels that have
problems to credibly commit to future non-
exploitive behaviour.
Previous research has suggested that
biased third parties may mitigate commit-
ment problems between parties, by serving as
guarantors for the weakening side (Fearon,
1998; Gilady & Russett, 2002; Schmidt,
© 2007 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 44, no. 2, 2007, pp. 177–194
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307075121
Bargaining, Bias and Peace Brokers: How Rebels
Commit to Peace*
ISAK SVENSSON
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
What is the role of biased mediators in bringing belligerents to a negotiated settlement in internal armed
conflicts? Previous research has suggested that biased third parties may mitigate commitment problems
between parties, by serving as guarantors for the weakening side. This article contributes to the previous
debate by distinguishing, theoretically and empirically, between government- and rebel-biased mediation.
When belligerents in internal armed conflicts consider ending their armed conflict through a negotiated
settlement, the government stands to relinquish authority, whereas the rebels stand to gain opportunities
– legitimacy, time and access to official structures – that can be exploited in the post-agreement future.
Hence, in the pre-settlement phase of the conflict process, it is above all the rebels that have problems
committing to peace. The author argues that government-biased mediators can decrease the fears of the
government and thereby mitigate the rebels’ commitment problems. Using new data on the dyadic level
covering all intrastate armed conflict in the period 1989–2003, this article examines states, organizations
and individuals that are mediating in states’ internal conflicts. The empirical analysis supports the above-
mentioned argument. Mediators on the side of the government have a positive effect on negotiated set-
tlements, while rebel-biased mediators have no significant effect.
* I wish to thank Mats Hammarström, Desirée Nilsson, Lisa
Hultman, Magnus Öberg, Patrick Regan and the three anony-
mous reviewers for excellent comments on earlier drafts. The data
used in this article can be found at http://www. prio.no/
jpr/datasets. For correspondence: isak.svensson@pcr. uu.se.
2005; Walter, 2002). Biased mediators may
lessen the weakening side’s fear and, conse-
quently, increase the chances for a peaceful
settlement. This article elaborates on the role
that biased mediators may have in mitigating
parties’ commitment problems. It contributes
to the previous debate by distinguishing,
theoretically and empirically, between whether
the mediators are biased towards the insur-
gency movement or the incumbents. Previous
research has failed to take into account the
asymmetry between rebels and governments
in the negotiation phase of internal armed
conflicts. I argue that mediators who are biased
for the government may provide a remedy for
the rebel-sided commitment problem the
parties encounter when they are to sign an
agreement and terminate their violent behav-
iour. Hence, mediators who are biased for the
government may provide an opportunity for
rebels to show their trustworthiness. By accept-
ing a government-biased mediator, who has
incentives to protect the government and
punish the rebels, the rebel side sends a costly
signal of conciliatory intention. On the other
hand, mediators who are biased for the rebels
will have fewer incentives to protect the
government if the rebels renege on a peace
deal. Hence, rebel-biased mediators should
be generally less credible when belligerents
are to reach negotiated settlements of inter-
nal armed conflicts. Whereas rebels would
preferably select a mediator who is biased
towards their own side, they know that, in
order to extricate themselves from their com-
mitment problem, they need to accept a
mediator that is biased to their disfavour.
Therefore, the rebels’ acceptance of govern-
ment-biased mediators enhances the credi-
bility of the rebels’ commitment to peace.
Empirically, this study aims to bridge the
gap between the literature on third-party
intervention and the mediation literature.
Bias is coded by using data on previous sup-
port from an outside party. Outside actors
sometimes change their role from being sup-
portive of one side to mediating between the
two. Hence, compared with previous inter-
vention research, this article provides a more
fine-grained analysis of the path from war to
settlement. Consequently, this study con-
tributes not only to the theoretical debate on
mediation, but also to the expanding quan-
titative research on third-party military inter-
ventions in civil wars.
The article is presented in four parts. It
starts with a discussion about why it is the
rebels, and not primarily the governments,
that have difficulty making their commit-
ments credible in the pre-settlement negoti-
ation phase of internal armed conflicts. The
second part is the research design, where
data, definitions and variables are explained.
The argument is tested with a new dyadic
dataset on all intrastate armed conflict in the
period 1989–2003, building on the Uppsala
Conflict Data Base (UCDB). The empirical
findings are presented in the third part of the
article. The results show that mediators who
are biased towards the government have a
positive effect on the likelihood of the parties
reaching a peace agreement. This finding
holds while controlling for both temporal
dependence and variables suggested by pre-
vious civil-war termination research, as well
as potential selection effects. In the fourth
and last part, these findings are related to the
debate in previous research. It has been
suggested that biased mediators may increase
the probability of negotiated settlement,
owing to their leverage over the primary par-
ties (for instance, Touval & Zartman, 2001).
This article discusses why the leverage expla-
nation is insufficient and suggests that the
leverage explanation has theoretical problems
while falling short of explaining the empiri-
cal patterns in this study. The article ends by
identifying avenues for future research relat-
ing to biased mediation in internal armed
conflicts.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 44 / number 2 / march 2007
178
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