Abstract
Kyle Beardsley’s The Mediation Dilemma presents a number of intriguing insights into the causes and consequences of mediation, including one particularly unsettling implication that acts as a challenge to future scholars who seek to improve the sustainability of mediated peace. Although the book is geared primarily to examining how mediation could secure a short-term cessation of hostilities at the cost of undermining the long-term sustainability of peace—the titular dilemma—and to exploring factors that could condition this trade-off, one might argue that its critical conclusion, from the perspective of desiring more stable peace settlements, is that belligerents and potential mediators alike may be conscious of this trade-off and yet pursue mediation in accordance with a strategy that emphasizes favorable short-term results. Accordingly, scholars face the difficult task of uncovering factors that make mediated settlements feasible in the short term and sustainable over time.
Beardsley grounds his argument in the bargaining model of war; he examines how mediators affect information asymmetries and commitment problems that could preclude peace, as well as how mediators can help leaders to untie their hands, mitigating the audience costs associated with backing down from aggressive statements and explicit threats. Although the author does not present his theory formally (a decision that likely broadens the audience to whom this study speaks), his attention to the insights of formal theory is particularly useful in highlighting the selection effect that might bias studies of mediation outcomes. Accordingly, the author devotes a chapter to explore when mediation occurs, demonstrating that it tends to manifest when belligerents and potential mediators alike favor a “quick fix” regardless of the long-term consequences.
Moving forward, the critical question for future studies to consider is whether—and, if so, how—a mediator can facilitate an enduring peace without committing itself to a perpetual, costly involvement in the postsettlement relationship. The author claims (p. 186) that mediators using leverage to secure a settlement risk upsetting the long-term sustainability of the peace not because these heavy-handed acts precipitate resistance but because mediators typically fail to maintain the commitment needed to enforce the agreement. Indeed, the author’s discussion of the U.S. mediation that led to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel illustrates that large, ongoing investments by mediators can secure a lasting peace.
Yet as the author notes, states with a long-term interest in regional stability and the willingness to commit resources to maintain a peace settlement most likely represent a small subset of possible mediators. One might infer from the Egypt–Israel case that the mediator must be a major power for mediated settlements to endure. Future studies should examine whether there are other behaviors that mediators, particularly those that are less powerful, can undertake to ensure a mutually beneficial postsettlement environment.
For example, although one could argue that the Egypt–Israel case is a classic example of hegemonic stability theory in action, it might be possible to apply the insights of the liberal peace to achieve a similarly stable postconflict environment without requiring costly investment from the mediator. Perhaps mediated settlements would benefit from clauses that establish economic ties between former belligerents. Given the large body of literature demonstrating that economic ties can overcome uncertainty (e.g., Gartzke, Li, & Boehmer, 2001; Reed, 2003), these economic ties might function in the long run similar to mediation in the short run. However, research also suggests, at least with respect to trade, that negotiated settlements (with no distinction between those mediated and those negotiated directly) tend to be followed by periods of zero-sum thinking and hypersensitivity to potential coercion stemming from trade ties, a fact that could sabotage any pacifying impact that these economic ties would otherwise have (Peterson & Quackenbush, 2010). Future research could examine whether mediation ameliorates these suspicions, rendering mediated settlements more amenable to postconflict cooperation than negotiated settlements achieved without the assistance of third parties.
Alternatively, mediators might facilitate an enduring mediated settlement by taking steps to give themselves a stake in continued peace (assuming the absence of clear strategic incentives to do so, as existed for the United States in the Egypt–Israel case). For example, the mediator could push for a mediated agreement that establishes economic ties between itself and each belligerent. Fearing the disruption of these ties should conflict recur, the mediator would have an incentive to maintain pressure on both sides to preserve peace. Although prior research suggests that economic ties to both parties would lead the mediator to stay out of future militarized conflicts between them (Aydin, 2008), perhaps the mediator would intervene diplomatically to forestall such conflicts from arising.
As the discussion above demonstrates, there are important links between mediation and political settlements; future studies may benefit from synthesizing the insights of the mediation and settlement literatures. Indeed, in his analysis of the short-term benefits of mediation, Beardsley demonstrates that mediation is associated with more robust negotiated settlements (pp. 75-76), acknowledging the possibility that the pacifying effect of mediation could follow because it enables these agreements. Yet although peace endures longer following negotiated settlements than following failures to reach a settlement, prior research also finds that peace is most stable following imposed settlements (which presumably are not reached through mediation) because one side (the imposer) is relatively satisfied with the postconflict status quo, whereas neither side is completely satisfied following a negotiated settlement (Senese & Quackenbush, 2003). As the author notes (p. 41), mediation precludes the learning that occurs through continued fighting; potentially, it could prevent a clear victor from emerging, thereby removing an important condition for the imposition of a settlement. Given that the outcome of mediation is most likely a negotiated settlement, one might presume that neither side is satisfied completely with the mediated settlement, and thus it is not as stable as an imposed settlement would have been. Conversely, however, it could be that mediation improves belligerents’ satisfaction with negotiated settlements, such that this subset of negotiated settlements is as pacifying—or perhaps even more pacifying—than imposed settlements.
The author’s inattention to the distinction between negotiated and imposed settlements is quite understandable given his theoretical grounding in the bargaining model of war, which emphasizes the role of information rather than status quo satisfaction. Following this framework, the author compares mediated settlements to a category that includes both imposed settlements and failures to reach a settlement. Although mediated settlements are statistically more pacifying than this aggregate group in the short run and less pacifying in the long run, we can draw little inference regarding the relative pacifying impact of mediated settlements versus imposed settlements because failures to reach a settlement are far more prevalent than imposed settlements, at least in the Militarized Interstate Dispute data (Ghosn, Palmer, & Bremer, 2004) and, therefore, could be driving the author’s results. Future research may benefit from addressing this question.
Another promising avenue for future inquiry stems from the author’s finding that mediation often arises from the potential mediator’s self-serving, short-run policy goals. Beginning from this premise, future research could benefit from examining the role of domestic politics in the supply of mediation. Future studies may be able to uncover whether and when leaders are pressured by domestic populations to resolve foreign conflicts quickly, given that this popular pressure may be responsible for a short-run focus and consequent disregard for the long-run sustainability of peace. For example, significant media attention to civilian casualties or human rights abuses during conflicts may override strategic calculus when leaders decide whether to offer mediation; future research could benefit from searching for the existence of a “CNN effect” for mediation.
In short, The Mediation Dilemma is an excellent addition to the literature. The book is extensive in its coverage of the implications associated with mediation of international and civil conflicts. Its attention to the intertemporal trade-offs inherent in mediation and the potentially purposeful manipulation of these trade-offs by foreign policy decision makers provides scholars with an excellent jumping-off point for future research. Its insights translate well to other areas in international relations and, moreover, are useful for a broad audience. The author’s mixed-methods approach, which uses convincing statistical models to test several hypotheses while also illustrating the theoretical argument with a discussion of seminal cases, and the compelling discussion of policy recommendations with which the book concludes, demonstrate the relevance of this book for researchers, students, and policy makers alike. Furthermore, the implication that the best policy stems from a long-run orientation highlights the difficulty inherent in settling conflicts amid the prevalence of short-run foreign policy goals; this point deserves emphasis.