The Politics of Diplomacy in Third-Party Intervention

• In Event: Political Economy of War: Theories and Implications

Abstract

The contemporary security environment is characterized by a shift away from formal alliance structures to transient marriage of convenience on specific issues. This suggests that the enemy of my enemy, despite our collaboration on combating a common enemy, is not necessarily my friend because of conflicting interests on other issues. Focusing on powerful third parties whose interests in a conflict are partially misaligned with their wartime allies, this paper studies how preferences of external actors matter for the course and conclusion of peace negotiations. Powerful third parties, by leveraging their superior military and economic resources, are able to influence belligerents’ negotiation behavior and prospects for peace. As self-interested actors, they care not only about whether a negotiated settlement can be brokered, but also whether terms of the settlement can satisfy their own interests. Formalizing a bargaining environment where two warring parties negotiate over multiple disputed issues and a foreign actor has private information about to what degree her and her ally’s interests are aligned, this paper investigates (1) how a powerful external actor exploits her private information and induces belligerents to locate a settlement closer to her ideal point through cheap talk diplomacy; and (2) how her signals affect prospects for peace. I demonstrate that during peace negotiations, foreign actors’ signaling strategies are endogenous to bargaining protocols adopted by warring parties. Misaligned interests between foreign actors and their allies can allow foreign actors to send informative and influential signals, but only under certain bargaining protocols. How foreign actors signal their preferences is contingent on (1) whether belligerents bargain over disputed issues separately or simultaneously; and (2) whether proposals over disputed issues are bundled. A foreign actor will overstate her affinity with her ally if the signal allows the ally to better advance their common interests without making the ally more aggressive over issues reflecting their misaligned interests, and will downplay her affinity with her ally if the signal prevents the ally from extracting more of issues they disagree about without undermining the ally’s ability to accomplish their common goals. In addition, I show that foreign actors’ preferences make a difference on prospects for peace. As the foreign actor cares more about conflicting interests with her ally, she becomes more restrained from alleging support, which makes her ally easier to appease and improves prospects for peace.

Author

• Yu Mei, University of Rochester