Domestic Constraints in Crisis Bargaining

Abstract

I study the limits of mediated conflict resolution when: states have incentives to misrepresent private information; mediators may have limited capacity to enforce agreement; and political leaders in crisis bargaining situations are subject to domestic constraints. With a mechanism design approach, I characterize the conditions for the existence of peaceful settlements as a weighed resource budget constraint. I examine how the (lack of) enforcement capacity may impact mediators’ ability to implement peaceful settlements. When the existence conditions fail, I establish strict monotonicity theorems about leaders’ war-propensity and payoff, and derive their implications on the design of optimal domestic constraints in general crisis bargaining games.