Who Mediates? the Political Economy of International Conflict Management

Jacob Bercovitch and Gerald Schneider
Additional contact information
Jacob Bercovitch: Department of Political Science, University of Canterbury
Gerald Schneider: Faculty of Public Policy and Management, University of Konstanz

Journal of Peace Research, 2000, vol. 37, issue 2, 145-165

Abstract: Studies on international mediation have traditionally focused on the effectiveness of international efforts to settle or resolve militarized conflicts. In this article, we start from a different perspective and examine the identity of mediators and the factors determining the choice of mediators. We build an integrative theoretical framework to explain the number of mediation mandates an international actor receives. The hypotheses we derive are subsequently tested in a multivariate event count model using an original dataset on international mediation from 1950 to 1990. The results obtained from Poisson and negative binomial regressions disconfirm the assertion that the effectiveness of a mediator influences the number of mandates it receives. The most important structural force on the international mediation market seems to be the hegemonic status of the USA. The analysis further demonstrates that international conflict management is largely, but not exclusively, restricted to the permanent members of the Security Council of the UN. As the theoretical framework suggests, ideological factors, such as the neutrality of the mediator, play a less significant role on the market for mediation. Democracies equally are not significantly more active than autocracies in the management of international conflicts.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/37/2/145.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:37:y:2000:i:2:p:145-165

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().