Negotiation and Mediation in Conflicts I: The Role of Mathematical Approaches and Methods

Abstract

There are many possible approaches to the analysis of conflict situations and ways of developing mediation or negotiation procedures. In general, we can distinguish between socio-political approaches, procedures for mediation and negotiation which have developed historically through political experience, and systems-analytical, mathematical approaches, which rely on various branches of decision and game theory or on computerized simulation or gaming models. While the socio-political approaches must remain the basis of any analysis of conflict situations, they can usefully be supplemented by more-formalized approaches; both approaches, when used separately, have their limitations.This paper, after a short review of existing systems-analytical and mathematical approachés, proposes new concepts and methods for the mathematical analysis of conflict processes. The proposed approach attempts to bridge the gap between simulation gaming models and experiments and more formal game-theoretical analysis by taking certain ideas from interactive decision supported gaming, assuming that the players have multiple objectives that they wish to satisfice (not optimize), and introducing special mediation procedures as an element of decision support during the game. The mathematical concepts used are the selection of satisficing game equilibria, the definition of constructive and destructive behavior (on the part of the players), and a formalization of conflict escalation and de-escalation processes.