Softening Up: Making Conflicts More Amenable to Diplomacy

J. Michael Greig and Paul F. Diehl

International Interactions, 2006, vol. 32, issue 4, 355-384

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the process by which initially reluctant protagonists come to accept diplomacy to resolve their conflicts; we refer to this as “softening up.” Although some studies exploring mediation and negotiation initiation have identified a number of important factors, they have produced largely modest results. These modest findings may reflect the fact that the conditions that promote diplomacy do so only after disputants have been softened up, thereby producing results that are statistically significant, but not substantively strong, unless one controls for a softening effect. In this paper, we develop and test a model of softening up. We do so by studying all pairs of rival states in the period 1946--1995.

Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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DOI: 10.1080/03050620601011032

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