Abstract
Pre-negotiation is widely accepted as a means to convince intrastate conflict parties to negotiate formally; however, research has not yet established a causal link between early efforts to bring warring parties together and the outcome of any negotiated settlement. This gap begs the question: To what extent do activities during the pre-negotiation phase contribute to the signing of a peace agreement? Theory on interstate conflict suggests that pre-negotiation reduces risk, thereby convincing conflict parties that they have more to gain from negotiating than from fighting. However, in conflicts between governments and non-state armed actors, this article argues that reciprocity paves the way for reaching peace agreements. This article introduces a new dataset on pre-negotiation including nearly all intrastate armed conflicts between 2005 and 2015. Confirming previous findings, mediation is significantly and positively correlated with reaching a type of peace agreement; conflicts over government are more likely to end in a negotiated agreement than conflicts over territory or both government and territory. In contrast to existing qualitative research, this study finds little evidence that pre-negotiation increases the likelihood that conflict dyads sign peace agreements. Future quantitative research on this topic requires more nuanced measures of the conditions under which conflict parties shift from unilateral to joint decisionmaking.
Highlights
Pre-negotiation – the discreet interactions that move conflict parties closer to initiating formal peace talks – is considered best practice within the international negotiation field
Previous studies on pre-negotiation emphasize qualitative methods, rather than quantitative methods (Pantev, 2000: 57; Stein, 1989a,b) and no study has tested the generalizability of existing theories (Schiff, 2008: 389; Zartman, 2008: 308) due to the lack of comprehensive data
A commitment to negotiate in one year was not necessarily repeated in the dataset unless the source material explicitly stated that the parties repeated their commitment
Summary
Pre-negotiation – the discreet interactions that move conflict parties closer to initiating formal peace talks – is considered best practice within the international negotiation field. Diagnostics and framing Moving toward the right along the spectrum, most pre-negotiation scholars include a ‘diagnostic’ or ‘framing’ phase in which the conflict parties seek common definitions of their issues and problems (Zartman, 1989; Rothman, 1990; Saunders, 1991; Tomlin, 1989; Stein, 1989a). The data include observations of conflict dyad-years once the group appeared in the Yearbook within the time period of study, and had not yet ended in military victory by the government or non-state armed group. Iterative process during which parties move from unilateral to joint decisionmaking This simulates the progression from bargaining to problem-solving and captures the five main components of narrow and wide definitions: (1) diagnostics and framing, (2) actor inclusion and exclusion, (3) trust- and confidence-building measures, (4) signals of commitment, and (5) procedures. A commitment to negotiate in one year was not necessarily repeated in the dataset unless the source material explicitly stated that the parties repeated their commitment
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