Cultural Similarity and Mediation Offers in Interstate Conflicts, 1945–1995

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the role and salience of culture in interstate conflict management efforts. Past studies of cultural similarity in conflict management involving third parties often focused on two-way cultural relationships: either examining cultural similarity between disputants or similarity between third parties and each of the disputants as individuals. However, we argue that this first wave of research should be augmented by a focus on triads. Our study asks the question: to what extent does cultural similarity among disputants and potential mediators predict the likelihood of a mediation offer? We test our hypotheses using data from the International Conflict Management Dataset between 1945 and 1995 and find that mediation offers are most likely to emerge when the triad is ethnically or religiously similar, while shared political culture is not a reliable predictor of mediation offers to disputing dyads.