Conflict as the point of departure
To understand the factors that drive parties to engage in – or refrain from – mediation, we must first think about conflict. For without conflict there is no need for mediation. According to Fearon (1995), given the high costs entailed in armed conflict, states that are rational actors will avoid conflict in the first place and resolve their differences through peaceful means.2 Yet conflicts occur and may constitute a rational strategy that is preferred to a negotiated agreement for several reasons: (1) poor information or incentives to misrepresent information. Actors in the international system typically operate under conditions of incomplete information, especially when engaged in conflict. Rivals know their own capabilities and intentions but need to speculate about those of the opponent. Moreover the incentive to misrepresent information is particularly high during conflict. In May 1973 Anwar Sadat launched a bellicose mass-media campaign, leading Israel to mobilize reserve units and prepare for war. The Egyptians, however, did not attack, and the Israeli chief of staff came under harsh criticism for the economic cost of the mobilization. Sadat would later admit that this was all part of his strategic deception plan, to lull the Israelis into inaction when less than six months later Egypt moved its forces in preparation for a real attack (Sadat 1978). Incomplete information and misinformation often make it difficult for rivals to identify possibly acceptable settlements. (2) Commitment problems. A second obstacle to a negotiated settlement entails commitment problems – actors may be reluctant to commit to a settlement that entails concessions due to concerns that the opponent will defect from the settlement. Thus, rivals may prefer to be in conflict rather than risk future defection by the opponent from a settlement. (3) Audience costs. A third factor that may keep actors in a state of conflict are political considerations. Leaders may be unable to switch to a more conciliatory strategy due to concerns that they will be punished politically.
As they remain in conflict and continue to accumulate the human, military, political and economic costs involved, the disputing parties may realize that there might be some agreement out there that could end their conflict. Yet, they may not know what that agreement is because of incomplete information or hesitate to propose one due to commitment or domestic political costs. At this point they may consider inviting a third party to serve as a mediator or respond to a third party’s offer of mediation. The mediator, who is outside the emotional and physical sphere of the conflict but who has direct access to both disputants, can supply important information about the intentions, capabilities and preferences of the opponent. In the face of domestic obstacles, mediators can serve as legitimizing agents, good for persuading the other side of one’s rightful position; when compromise is necessary, they can help persuade one’s constituency of the necessity of concessions. Once an agreement is reached or as a prerequisite for agreement, mediators can also serve as guarantors of an agreement, reducing the likelihood of future costly conflicts.
Benefits and costs of mediation
Mediation of a conflict offers numerous potential benefits to disputants. As discussed, disputing parties often turn to mediators or accept mediation offers because they are not able to reach an agreement by themselves. Yet, there also exist other potential benefits to mediation. First, expectations that mediation will deliver the other side and help each party in a dispute secure a more favorable outcome than would otherwise be possible may induce disputants to prefer a mediated negotiation. Additionally, mediators can “enlarge the pie” and provide side payments in return for the parties’ cooperation or concessions made. For example, the United States provided Israel and Egypt with billions of dollars in military and financial assistance in return for signing the peace treaty in 1979. Yet another benefit of mediation might be improvement in a party’s relations with the third party. Both Egypt’s signals in the early 1970s that it sought US involvement in the Arab–Israel conflict and Syria’s willingness in the 1990s to negotiate with Israel through the United States can be interpreted as attempts to become closer to the United States.
Third parties as well are driven to mediate by a variety of motivations. International standing and the opportunity to continue to have a role in future relations in the region is one benefit mediators stand to gain if their mediation efforts bear fruit. Another driving force may be the mediator’s desire to improve relations with one or both disputants. Soviet mediation between India and Pakistan in 1965 was partly inspired the Soviet Union’s desire to improve its relations with Pakistan, a country that had hitherto been on better terms with the United States and China than with the Soviet Union. A national interest in a conflict or in the conflict region is a possible motivation for the third party’s involvement. As discussed in the empirical chapters of this book, after 1973, to the extent that American peace efforts helped prevent Arab–Israeli warfare, they also helped prevent oil boycotts by Arab states. Protection or expansion of the mediator’s sphere of influence is another potential driving force for intervention, especially if the mediator is a major power. These two objectives, together and separately, motivated the US intervention in the Arab–Israeli conflict at different times with varying degrees of success. In the 1950s the United States failed to achieve its objective and the Soviet Union gained the upper hand in the region because Egypt and Syria believed that American mediation would restrict their ability to act against Israel. In the 1970s, mediation was a constructive instrument in the American competition with the Soviet Union and contributed to the distancing of Egypt from the Soviets. A mediator may also have an interest in bringing about a specific end to a conflict. In this sense, the mediator’s ‘ideal point’ may fall between the disputants’ ideal points, closer to one than to the other or near neither of the parties’ ideal points.3
Yet, mediation is not only about prospective gains. If it were, we would probably see mediation in every dispute. Mediation also entails certain costs and risks for all parties involved. Indeed, there are probably as many reasons for parties’ rejection of mediation as there are for acceptance. Interestingly, the literature deals extensively with the potential benefits of mediation, yet pays little heed to the potential costs.
Whether a mediator provides important information, promises one or both of the disputants rewards for their cooperation or sanctions players that do not cooperate, all of these activities require that the mediator expend resources. Additionally, like other activities in the international arena, mediation entails the risk of failure, and the cost of mediation failure may be a highly significant one. From the mediator’s perspective, the cost of failure may be intolerable – in terms of personal or national prestige, damage caused to a state’s or an organization’s political standing, as well as tangible resources spent. The mediator’s relations with one or both disputants may be damaged as the result of mediation failure.
Mediation is not only costly when it fails. Relations between the mediator and one or both parties may be damaged by the end of a mediation process even when it succeeds in bringing about an agreement. For settlements over disputed issues, even when cushioned by incentives provided by a generous mediator, often include some painful concessions and thus some feeling of dissatisfaction, possibly harming the bilateral relationship between the disputant and the party that pushed for the agreement – the mediator. Mediation of a conflict between two parties may have a negative effect on the mediator’s relations with other players in the international system as well, players that are in no way connected to the dispute. Such a potential cost led the United States to initially turn down India’s requests to mediate between India and Pakistan in the Bangladesh crisis (1971) due to concerns that intervention would jeopardize its secret but budding relations with China in which Pakistan was playing a pivotal role.
From the perspective of the disputants as well, mediation carries many potential costs. A main concern of the disputants is that by agreeing to mediation, they yield to the third party some degree of control over how the negotiations will proceed. Likewise, acceptance might signal weakness to the rival. By accepting mediation, a disputant sends out a clear message to an opponent that it is ready to negotiate, that it is prepared to make concessions. It is not hard to imagine the deleterious effect such a declaration might have on one’s bargaining position. Additionally, the fact that a third party is involved in a state’s affairs may also entail certain side costs for the state. Costly alliance ties are a possible side cost that disputants may expect to pay (Gartner & Bercovitch 2006:822). Thus, in return for mediation assistance, a state might be – implicitly or explicitly – forced to subscribe to certain policy guidelines set down by the mediator. Finally, mediation failure usually means going back to a costly conflict, possibly a more costly one because of the failure of negotia...
