Since its emergence as a field of scholarship and practice, transitional justice has coalesced around a set of mechanisms to deal with a legacy of violence. The “pull” toward mechanisms, institutions, and structures as a means of delivering justice has led to certain kinds of knowledge being recognized as “transitional justice research” in the mainstream. Drawing on the theory of epistemic positioning, we reveal how hierarchies of academic knowledge and the dominant “ways of knowing” in and of transitional justice are created. Through citation analysis, we reveal an emerging canon, a central body of valuable and seemingly “inevitable” knowledge of transitional justice consisting primarily of structure and outcome-oriented inquiries in the disciplines of politics, international relations, and law and consolidating a standardized model of how to “do” transitional justice. We argue that this canonization comes at the expenses of alternative approaches that challenge the core assumptions of the field. Inquiries that prioritize agency or process and reimagine what transitional justice could be remain bounded to their disciplines and subfields. We demonstrate how certain anxieties about the survival of the field result in policing of the boundaries of the field, creating hierarchies of “valuable” knowledge, and resisting the “decolonizing” impulse.
{"title":"What Counts as Transitional Justice Scholarship? Citational Recognition and Disciplinary Hierarchies in Theory and Practice","authors":"Maja Davidović, Catherine Turner","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad091","url":null,"abstract":"Since its emergence as a field of scholarship and practice, transitional justice has coalesced around a set of mechanisms to deal with a legacy of violence. The “pull” toward mechanisms, institutions, and structures as a means of delivering justice has led to certain kinds of knowledge being recognized as “transitional justice research” in the mainstream. Drawing on the theory of epistemic positioning, we reveal how hierarchies of academic knowledge and the dominant “ways of knowing” in and of transitional justice are created. Through citation analysis, we reveal an emerging canon, a central body of valuable and seemingly “inevitable” knowledge of transitional justice consisting primarily of structure and outcome-oriented inquiries in the disciplines of politics, international relations, and law and consolidating a standardized model of how to “do” transitional justice. We argue that this canonization comes at the expenses of alternative approaches that challenge the core assumptions of the field. Inquiries that prioritize agency or process and reimagine what transitional justice could be remain bounded to their disciplines and subfields. We demonstrate how certain anxieties about the survival of the field result in policing of the boundaries of the field, creating hierarchies of “valuable” knowledge, and resisting the “decolonizing” impulse.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"4 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138297701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Existing literature on international hierarchies has focused on great powers, hitherto overlooking those hierarchies led by secondary states. Secondary states lack the capabilities and geostrategic reach of their great power counterparts but nevertheless seek to create subordinate relationships in their immediate regions. We argue that in doing so secondary states draw on strategic toolkits that involve the creation of shared communities and the intensification of material dependencies between superordinate and subordinate. However, more so than great powers, secondary states do not get things all their own way. Recognizing the agency of even the weakest of states, we further contend that potential subordinates employ a range of resistance techniques—which we call firewalls and dissonance strategies. We elaborate on these strategies, and conclude our argument, by applying the theoretical model presented here to the novel case of the Sunshine Policy—a decade of inter-Korean hierarchy formation, contestation, and resistance from 1998 to 2008 in which we claim that South Korea attempted, and ultimately stalled, in its efforts to establish itself in a hierarchical relationship with North Korea.
{"title":"Domination for the Rest? Creating and Contesting Secondary State-Led International Hierarchies","authors":"Alexander M Hynd, Daniel Connolly","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad098","url":null,"abstract":"Existing literature on international hierarchies has focused on great powers, hitherto overlooking those hierarchies led by secondary states. Secondary states lack the capabilities and geostrategic reach of their great power counterparts but nevertheless seek to create subordinate relationships in their immediate regions. We argue that in doing so secondary states draw on strategic toolkits that involve the creation of shared communities and the intensification of material dependencies between superordinate and subordinate. However, more so than great powers, secondary states do not get things all their own way. Recognizing the agency of even the weakest of states, we further contend that potential subordinates employ a range of resistance techniques—which we call firewalls and dissonance strategies. We elaborate on these strategies, and conclude our argument, by applying the theoretical model presented here to the novel case of the Sunshine Policy—a decade of inter-Korean hierarchy formation, contestation, and resistance from 1998 to 2008 in which we claim that South Korea attempted, and ultimately stalled, in its efforts to establish itself in a hierarchical relationship with North Korea.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"4 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138297703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Resolving protracted, asymmetric, and ethno-national conflicts is a notoriously problematic process, and only a handful of such attempts have ended in success. This paper is the first comparative study examining the relevance of “politically motivated violent offenders” (PMVOs) in propelling the shift from a long and bloody armed struggle to a negotiated agreement; indeed, they play an indispensable role in the ratification and the eventual implementation of any such agreement. We compare the role of PMVOs in three cases of protracted conflict resolution processes in the 1990s—Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords. We argue that PMVOs constitute a distinguished socio-political actor characterized by high symbolic capital as the embodiment of the national struggle. This renders them a major source of political legitimacy, a necessary condition for attaining peace with hitherto sworn enemies and securing its implementation and stabilization. The paper analyzes the provisions within the respective agreements pertaining to prisoners’ release as an incentive, or lack thereof, especially for organizations outside the peace process to cease violence. Whereas the British and South African governments fully recognized the PMVO issue, Israel’s failure to recognize its importance was a major factor leading to the breakdown of the Oslo process.
{"title":"The Key Role of Political Prisoners in Transcending Protracted Conflicts","authors":"Tomer Schorr-Liebfeld, Avraham Sela","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad095","url":null,"abstract":"Resolving protracted, asymmetric, and ethno-national conflicts is a notoriously problematic process, and only a handful of such attempts have ended in success. This paper is the first comparative study examining the relevance of “politically motivated violent offenders” (PMVOs) in propelling the shift from a long and bloody armed struggle to a negotiated agreement; indeed, they play an indispensable role in the ratification and the eventual implementation of any such agreement. We compare the role of PMVOs in three cases of protracted conflict resolution processes in the 1990s—Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords. We argue that PMVOs constitute a distinguished socio-political actor characterized by high symbolic capital as the embodiment of the national struggle. This renders them a major source of political legitimacy, a necessary condition for attaining peace with hitherto sworn enemies and securing its implementation and stabilization. The paper analyzes the provisions within the respective agreements pertaining to prisoners’ release as an incentive, or lack thereof, especially for organizations outside the peace process to cease violence. Whereas the British and South African governments fully recognized the PMVO issue, Israel’s failure to recognize its importance was a major factor leading to the breakdown of the Oslo process.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"110423226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This research note introduces a new dyadic dataset on gender and diplomatic representation and shows its potential to address questions about international status, gender patterns in international politics, and more. The GenDip dataset includes the names and gender classification of all bilateral ambassadors heading embassies 1968–2019 (74,549), structured as dyad/decade for 1968–1998 and dyad/lustrum for 1998–2019. Cross-fertilizing the quantitative study of status with qualitative studies on women's symbolic meaning for the status of states, we illustrate the utility of this data by showing that the gender of ambassadors is implicated in status hierarchies among states. For instance, states with a reputation as strongly patriarchal are more likely than others to post their female ambassadors to states with an international gender equality profile, for status and to signal policy alignment. We also show that shares of female ambassadors vary considerably among sending states, in unexpected ways, identifying the need for more research explaining why. This dataset enables new, crucial questions to be asked of international relations, mapping gender changes in diplomacy over time and place and explaining their causes and effects.
{"title":"Diplomatic Gender Patterns and Symbolic Status Signaling: Introducing the GenDip Dataset on Gender and Diplomatic Representation","authors":"Birgitta Niklasson, Ann E Towns","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad089","url":null,"abstract":"This research note introduces a new dyadic dataset on gender and diplomatic representation and shows its potential to address questions about international status, gender patterns in international politics, and more. The GenDip dataset includes the names and gender classification of all bilateral ambassadors heading embassies 1968–2019 (74,549), structured as dyad/decade for 1968–1998 and dyad/lustrum for 1998–2019. Cross-fertilizing the quantitative study of status with qualitative studies on women's symbolic meaning for the status of states, we illustrate the utility of this data by showing that the gender of ambassadors is implicated in status hierarchies among states. For instance, states with a reputation as strongly patriarchal are more likely than others to post their female ambassadors to states with an international gender equality profile, for status and to signal policy alignment. We also show that shares of female ambassadors vary considerably among sending states, in unexpected ways, identifying the need for more research explaining why. This dataset enables new, crucial questions to be asked of international relations, mapping gender changes in diplomacy over time and place and explaining their causes and effects.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"75 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"110423225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How does labor emigration affect state–society relations across postcolonial states? We argue that the opportunity to pursue employment abroad alters a fundamental component of postcolonial states—the post-independence social contract. Such states’ inability to sustain post-independence levels of welfare provision first leads to the development of “emigration management institutions,” which seek to encourage and regulate citizens’ labor emigration, and second, to the widening of the “remittance-welfare gap,” where labor emigration and remittances outpace state-sponsored welfare provision. These mark the emergence of a “transnational social contract,” as states leverage access to employment abroad in exchange for social and political acquiescence. This de-territorialization of the postcolonial social contract leads to de jure and de facto forms of state coercion toward its citizens/migrants, who are commodified by the market-based logic of transnational neo-patrimonialism. We test this argument through a paired comparison and within-case analysis across two postcolonial states in South Asia and the Middle East: Nepal and Jordan. We offer an interregional, South–South migration analysis and a novel framework of understanding the politics of mobility across non-Western states as “migration from below,” which acts as a corrective to the dominance of South–North migration research in international studies.
{"title":"The Transnational Social Contract in the Global South","authors":"Kamal Sadiq, Gerasimos Tsourapas","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad088","url":null,"abstract":"How does labor emigration affect state–society relations across postcolonial states? We argue that the opportunity to pursue employment abroad alters a fundamental component of postcolonial states—the post-independence social contract. Such states’ inability to sustain post-independence levels of welfare provision first leads to the development of “emigration management institutions,” which seek to encourage and regulate citizens’ labor emigration, and second, to the widening of the “remittance-welfare gap,” where labor emigration and remittances outpace state-sponsored welfare provision. These mark the emergence of a “transnational social contract,” as states leverage access to employment abroad in exchange for social and political acquiescence. This de-territorialization of the postcolonial social contract leads to de jure and de facto forms of state coercion toward its citizens/migrants, who are commodified by the market-based logic of transnational neo-patrimonialism. We test this argument through a paired comparison and within-case analysis across two postcolonial states in South Asia and the Middle East: Nepal and Jordan. We offer an interregional, South–South migration analysis and a novel framework of understanding the politics of mobility across non-Western states as “migration from below,” which acts as a corrective to the dominance of South–North migration research in international studies.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"64 17","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71524916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
One of the most influential arguments suggests that new democracies are more inclined than others to commit to international human rights treaties. This paper examines whether new democracies are more likely to commit not only to the basic, but also to the more demanding and constraining treaties. We argue that despite the strategic utility of costly commitments, new democracies are often unwilling to pay for the increased costs of more demanding and constraining treaties. We test our argument by tackling some of the trickiest inferential challenges. We employ propensity score weighting to address the nonrandom assignment of new democracies and further specify marginal structural models to account for dynamic confounding. Our analyses reveal intriguing findings. While new democracies commit to the broad human rights conventions more quickly, they are more reluctant than established democracies to commit to the more demanding and constraining protocols.
{"title":"New Democracies and Commitment to Human Rights Treaties","authors":"Xinyuan Dai, Alexandros Tokhi","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad092","url":null,"abstract":"One of the most influential arguments suggests that new democracies are more inclined than others to commit to international human rights treaties. This paper examines whether new democracies are more likely to commit not only to the basic, but also to the more demanding and constraining treaties. We argue that despite the strategic utility of costly commitments, new democracies are often unwilling to pay for the increased costs of more demanding and constraining treaties. We test our argument by tackling some of the trickiest inferential challenges. We employ propensity score weighting to address the nonrandom assignment of new democracies and further specify marginal structural models to account for dynamic confounding. Our analyses reveal intriguing findings. While new democracies commit to the broad human rights conventions more quickly, they are more reluctant than established democracies to commit to the more demanding and constraining protocols.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"60 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71474901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is growing evidence that leaders cooperate through regional intergovernmental organizations (RIOs) to address domestic security challenges. What sustains this collaboration? I present a theory of regional cooperation driven by mutual interest in stability and protection for heads of state. RIOs support the development of rules and norms around contributing to regional security and can legitimize pro-government military interventions. Leaders concerned that they may need external support—particularly against members of their own military—cooperate to remain in good standing with co-members. Using original security personnel deployment data for members of four Africa-based RIOs with mutual defense pacts between 1990 and 2017, I show that leaders facing higher coup risk were more likely to deploy personnel to support co-members. I also find evidence for the underlying mechanism—that these leaders contribute because they expect RIO members to reciprocate support in the future. Leaders who contributed more personnel to support co-members, and leaders who contributed more often, were more likely to receive military support from co-members in the future. These findings shed light on the dynamics sustaining regional security cooperation.
{"title":"Protection for Hire: Cooperation through Regional Organizations","authors":"Christina Cottiero","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad082","url":null,"abstract":"There is growing evidence that leaders cooperate through regional intergovernmental organizations (RIOs) to address domestic security challenges. What sustains this collaboration? I present a theory of regional cooperation driven by mutual interest in stability and protection for heads of state. RIOs support the development of rules and norms around contributing to regional security and can legitimize pro-government military interventions. Leaders concerned that they may need external support—particularly against members of their own military—cooperate to remain in good standing with co-members. Using original security personnel deployment data for members of four Africa-based RIOs with mutual defense pacts between 1990 and 2017, I show that leaders facing higher coup risk were more likely to deploy personnel to support co-members. I also find evidence for the underlying mechanism—that these leaders contribute because they expect RIO members to reciprocate support in the future. Leaders who contributed more personnel to support co-members, and leaders who contributed more often, were more likely to receive military support from co-members in the future. These findings shed light on the dynamics sustaining regional security cooperation.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"28 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The global populist backlash is considered threatening to the multilateral order, but its impact on individual attitudes toward international organizations, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is understudied. We bridge insights from research on the IMF and populism to develop a theoretical framework centered on three propositions. We argue that populist individuals should be more prone to blame the IMF for economic problems than non-populists, but that this effect is highly conditional on sovereignty intrusion, escalating when an IMF program exists and as the program becomes more onerous. In contrast, IMF scapegoating by populist politicians should be largely ineffective. Analyzing survey data from across the European Union and an original survey experiment in Greece, we find support for each contention. The paper advances understanding of the partisan politics of the IMF and shows that the implications of the populist wave for international order are more complex than often assumed.
{"title":"Sovereignty Intrusion: Populism and Attitudes toward the International Monetary Fund","authors":"Sam Handlin, Ayse Kaya, Hakan Gunaydin","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad079","url":null,"abstract":"The global populist backlash is considered threatening to the multilateral order, but its impact on individual attitudes toward international organizations, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is understudied. We bridge insights from research on the IMF and populism to develop a theoretical framework centered on three propositions. We argue that populist individuals should be more prone to blame the IMF for economic problems than non-populists, but that this effect is highly conditional on sovereignty intrusion, escalating when an IMF program exists and as the program becomes more onerous. In contrast, IMF scapegoating by populist politicians should be largely ineffective. Analyzing survey data from across the European Union and an original survey experiment in Greece, we find support for each contention. The paper advances understanding of the partisan politics of the IMF and shows that the implications of the populist wave for international order are more complex than often assumed.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"27 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Negotiations to restructure sovereign debt are protracted affairs, and their outcomes, known as “haircuts,” range from 0 to 80 percent creditor losses. Haircuts impact states’ ability to borrow, cost of borrowing, and economic recovery; they also redistribute income—between states and creditors and between domestic interest groups. I conceptualize the interaction between governments and private creditors as a bargaining game where the government’s will to repay is private information. Creditors can make inferences about repayment based on the government’s political economy, but distributional signals are muddled when there are multiple veto players. Where additional uncertainty persists, governments can issue a public declaration of default, triggering costs in international financial markets. This costly signal separates governments that are willing to repay from those that are not and extorts greater concessions as a result. Using data on haircuts and public default declarations in market-based restructurings from 1980 to 2009, I find that governments are more likely to engage in costly signaling when they face heightened domestic constraints. When governments issue public declarations, they are subsequently rewarded with higher haircuts. Defaults do not all look the same, and the economic consequences are varied.
{"title":"Defaulting Differently: The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt Restructuring Negotiations","authors":"Lauren L Ferry","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad086","url":null,"abstract":"Negotiations to restructure sovereign debt are protracted affairs, and their outcomes, known as “haircuts,” range from 0 to 80 percent creditor losses. Haircuts impact states’ ability to borrow, cost of borrowing, and economic recovery; they also redistribute income—between states and creditors and between domestic interest groups. I conceptualize the interaction between governments and private creditors as a bargaining game where the government’s will to repay is private information. Creditors can make inferences about repayment based on the government’s political economy, but distributional signals are muddled when there are multiple veto players. Where additional uncertainty persists, governments can issue a public declaration of default, triggering costs in international financial markets. This costly signal separates governments that are willing to repay from those that are not and extorts greater concessions as a result. Using data on haircuts and public default declarations in market-based restructurings from 1980 to 2009, I find that governments are more likely to engage in costly signaling when they face heightened domestic constraints. When governments issue public declarations, they are subsequently rewarded with higher haircuts. Defaults do not all look the same, and the economic consequences are varied.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hostile regional environments can spur civil war at home. Do they also affect mediation in a state’s ongoing civil war? We hypothesize they do, but in ways that produce competing effects: Third parties hesitate to offer mediation in a conflictual environment, but hostile environments also make disputants more amenable to mediation. We test these diverging expectations using a measure of conflict environments that aggregates spatially and temporally proximate civil war in a state’s neighborhood. Our empirical analyses reveal that third parties are significantly less likely to offer mediation as exogenous factors mount, a finding that holds even for third parties who have historic or security linkages to the civil war state. However, we find limited evidence that disputants’ decisions to accept mediation are driven by regional security concerns. Instead, local conflict conditions present more pressing concerns that drive disputants to accept offers to mediate. Taken together, the findings suggest potential mediators should pay attention to both a civil war state’s regional environment and local conditions, lest they underestimate disputants’ willingness to come to the table. Our work newly underscores the costs and risks associated with conflict hot spots and the risk for certain conflicts to be bypassed by peace brokers.
{"title":"Civil War Mediation and the Conflict Environment: Does Regional Instability Influence the Onset of Mediation?","authors":"Lindsay Reid, Kelly M Kadera, Mark J C Crescenzi","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqad066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad066","url":null,"abstract":"Hostile regional environments can spur civil war at home. Do they also affect mediation in a state’s ongoing civil war? We hypothesize they do, but in ways that produce competing effects: Third parties hesitate to offer mediation in a conflictual environment, but hostile environments also make disputants more amenable to mediation. We test these diverging expectations using a measure of conflict environments that aggregates spatially and temporally proximate civil war in a state’s neighborhood. Our empirical analyses reveal that third parties are significantly less likely to offer mediation as exogenous factors mount, a finding that holds even for third parties who have historic or security linkages to the civil war state. However, we find limited evidence that disputants’ decisions to accept mediation are driven by regional security concerns. Instead, local conflict conditions present more pressing concerns that drive disputants to accept offers to mediate. Taken together, the findings suggest potential mediators should pay attention to both a civil war state’s regional environment and local conditions, lest they underestimate disputants’ willingness to come to the table. Our work newly underscores the costs and risks associated with conflict hot spots and the risk for certain conflicts to be bypassed by peace brokers.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"27 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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