Abstract
In recent years, much of the public discourse regarding conflict in the Middle East has pondered the possibility of military intervention, but far less attention has been paid to the optimal mechanisms for conflict mediation. There remains considerable confusion in the study of conflict resolution about how to locate the right time, or ‘ripe moment’ for this type of third-party involvement. This is a crucial area of policy relevant research. When attempting to model ripeness, most of the literature has relied on expected utility models of decision-making and found that crucial but nebulous factors that are important in the MENA region, such as conflicting parties’ psychology, religious and political beliefs, as well as grievances compounded over time, cannot easily be incorporated into the framework. This paper offers a plausibility probe to highlight the potential of an augmented approach. Using Poliheuristic (PH) Theory that reflects the non-compensatory nature of political risk, it creates a litmus test for third-party mediation based not on what conflicting parties aim to achieve, but what outcomes and processes they must avoid. The result is a relatively simple identification of ‘bad’ timing, as well as theory-informed mechanisms designed to help practitioners generate better conditions for mediation. This probe contributes to our understanding of the relationship between political fragility and conflict in the MENA region by indicating how political fragility might be conceptualized as a process that can be mapped and perhaps interrupted.
Highlights
Kivimäki notes how “(s)tate fragility is often described as consisting of two elements: lack of efficiency and lack of legitimacy of state institutions” (Kivimäki 2021, p. 2)
Through the lens of PH Theory, this paper presents an inherent dichotomy associated with that pressure: it seems reasonable to call on the relevant leaders to seek mediation and resolution, the way political fragility functions automatically precludes much genuine peace-making behaviour
To map PH Theory’s non-compensatory loss-aversion principle and determine whether this provides a description of how political fragility functions in conflict mediation, this probe asks four related questions: (A) Would a PH assessment of the relevant political dimensions have indicated any red flags before talks commenced? (B) Did the breakdown of talks in 2013 reflect or defy Poliheuristic reasoning? (C) Does this analysis produce any new insights?
Summary
Kivimäki notes how “(s)tate fragility is often described as consisting of two elements: lack of efficiency and lack of legitimacy of state institutions” (Kivimäki 2021, p. 2). As this special issue explores the relationship between fragility, conflict and grievances in the MENA region, this article focuses on the component of political fragility (Kivimäki 2021). Rather than identifying a particular party’s fragility, the approach in this paper provides a system for condensing and thereby simplifying our understanding of the interaction between societal grievances, political fragility and conflict. This permits parsimony on one hand, while facilitating the integration of existing insights, such as identified problems with legitimacy (Alijla 2021; Loewe and Zintl 2021), factionalism and oil-dependence (Kivimäki 2021), into a single, ordered framework.
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