Talks before the talks: Effects of pre-negotiation on reaching peace agreements in intrastate armed conflicts, 2005–15
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320961152 |
| Author | Lindsey Doyle,Lukas Hegele |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Talks before the talks: Effects of
pre-negotiation on reaching peace agreements
in intrastate armed conflicts, 2005–15
Lindsey Doyle
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
Lukas Hegele
Department of Political Science, Stockholm University
Abstract
Pre-negotiation is widely accepted as a means to convince intrastate conflict parties to negotiate formally; however,
research has not yet established a causal link between early efforts to bring warring parties together and the outcome
of any negotiated settlement. This gap begs the question: To what extent do activities during the pre-negotiation
phase contribute to the signing of a peace agreement? Theory on interstate conflict suggests that pre-negotiation
reduces risk, thereby convincing conflict parties that they have more to gain from negotiating than from fighting.
However, in conflicts between governments and non-state armed actors, this article argues that reciprocity paves the
way for reaching peace agreements. This article introduces a new dataset on pre-negotiation including nearly all
intrastate armed conflicts between 2005 and 2015. Confirming previous findings, mediation is significantly and
positively correlated with reaching a type of peace agreement; conflicts over government are more likely to end in a
negotiated agreement than conflicts over territory or both government and territory. In contrast to existing quali-
tative research, this study finds little evidence that pre-negotiation increases the likelihood that conflict dyads sign
peace agreements. Future quantitative research on this topic requires more nuanced measures of the conditions under
which conflict parties shift from unilateral to joint decisionmaking.
Keywords
civil war, intrastate conflict, peace agreement, pre-negotiation
Introduction
Pre-negotiation – the discreet interactions that move
conflict parties closer to initiating formal peace talks –
is considered best practice within the international nego-
tiation field. Getting to the table is a major hurdle to
clear without which there is no potential for a negotiated
settlement (Zartman & Berman, 1982), given the plau-
sible link between pre-negotiation and the outcomes of
formal negotiation. Previous studies on pre-negotiation
emphasize qualitative methods, rather than quantitative
methods (Pantev, 2000: 57; Stein, 1989a,b) and no
study has tested the generalizability of existing theories
(Schiff, 2008: 389; Zartman, 2008: 308) due to the lack
of comprehensive data. Information on pre-negotiation
is typically not available systematically and processes are
often kept secret. Scholarship has not reached a consen-
sus on whether specific activities in pre-negotiation are
significantly more important than others for reaching
agreements (Zartman, 1985, 1989; Druckman, 1986;
Druckman & Hopmann, 1989; Schiff, 2008: 388;
Rothman, 1995). Moreover, the external validity of the-
ories of pre-negotiation remains untested as theories have
almost exclusively been derived from interstate conflicts
(Stein, 1989a; Tomlin, 1989; Cohen, 1997; Griffiths,
1979).
Corresponding author:
lindseydoyle192@gmail.com; lukas.hegele@statsvet.su.se
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(2) 231–247
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320961152
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To begin to fill these gaps, this article examines the
effectiveness of pre-negotiation in the context of
intrastate armed conflicts by inquiring: To what
extent does pre-negotiation affect the likelihood that
governments and non-state actors in conflict will
reach a negotiated settlement? Pre-negotiations are
theorized to socialize parties away from adversarial
bargaining towards problem-solving (Kelman &
Cohen, 1976; Fisher, 1989; Rothman, 1995). The
hypothesis that intrastate conflicts are more likely to
be resolved in a negotiated agreement when parties
engaged in pre-negotiations is tested against a novel
dataset on pre-negotiations between intrastate conflict
dyads from 2005 to 2015.
We could not address the data availability limitation
caused by process secrecy; however, the dataset repre-
sents the first systematic, quantified collection of various
secondary and tertiary sources. The meta-framework
captures 23 activities and dec ision points during pre-
negotiation with which the theories developed in quali-
tative studies on interstate conflicts are tested. The 14
models provide little support for the hypothesis that pre-
negotiation contributes to the signing of peace
agreements. The findings highlight the importance of
reciprocal, early decisionmaking in the conflict resolu-
tion process, thereby lending support for socialization
theories to explain the impact of intrastate pre-
negotiation on negotiated outcomes.
Debated scope of pre-negotiation
Based on pre-negotiation in interstate and intrastate con-
flict cases such as the talks prior to the Oslo process
between Palestinian and Israeli officials (Gewurz,
2000), or talks ahead of the Strategic Arms Limitations
Talks between the Soviet Union and the United States
(Griffiths, 1979), scholars have developed theories about
the onset, development, and effects of pre-negotiation
(see also Corbacho, 2008; Schiff, 2008; Fisher, 2007:
317; Chigas, 1997; Saunders, 1996; Stein, 1989a,b).
In pre-negotiations – a time period punctuated by
‘turning points’ – parties move from an adversarial to a
cooperative approach to conflict and work toward a joint
commitment to formally negotiate (Zartman, 1989;
Tomlin, 1989; Saunders, 1991). Decisions by the con-
flict parties to negotiate can result from direct and indi-
rect interaction (e.g. shuttle diplomacy or ‘informal
dialogue processes’), thereby reducing uncertainty and
managing complexity (Zartman, 1989; Druckman,
1986; Druckman & Hopmann, 1989; Schiff, 2008:
388; Rothman, 1995; Kelman, 1997; Fisher, 2007; Slim
& Saunders, 1996; Susskind, Chayes & Martinez,
1996). There is no consensus, however, on the relevance
of and optimal order for such decisions (Zartman &
Berman, 1982: 42, 87; Tomlin, 1989; Stein, 1989a).
These differences can be characterized as points along a
spectrum that delineate wide and narrow definitions of
pre-negotiation. This meta-framework (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Wide verses narrow definitions of pre-negotiation
232 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 58(2)
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