One of the proposed benefits of third-party involvement that has been offered to justify its use is that it helps reduce the severity of conflict. Existing work finding that peacekeeping operations reduce battle-related fatalities considers peacekeeping in isolation from other forms of third-party diplomatic involvement, such as mediation. We argue that mediation has its own effect on patterns of violence. Moreover, we argue that peacekeeping and mediation can have an interactive effect, in which each enhance the violence-reducing potential of the other. Using monthly data on battle-related deaths in African intrastate conflicts, we find that mediation is associated with reduced bloodshed. We also find, consistent with existing work, that a greater number of peacekeepers leads to a reduction in violence. In addition, we find that mediation and peacekeeping efforts reinforce one another, although each type of involvement is able to reduce battlefield fatalities independently.

Recent world events have renewed interest among social movement scholars in strategies and associated outcomes in campaigns against nondemocratic regimes. Most comparative work is limited to large-scale mobilization and takes violent/nonviolent tactics as given, thereby overlooking prior group mobilization and initial tactic choice. While a chosen tactic is plausibly related to group characteristics and resources, we argue that the mobilization process underlying large-scale campaigns begins when groups stake claims and assess those claims' potential. The proposed framework can help to explain both the specific tactics chosen and whether campaigns take on violent or nonviolent forms. We focus on grievances and the origins of mobilization through formulation of claims-making disputes over regime type, government composition, and electoral legitimacy—independent of mobilization—and consider how resources provide a comparative advantage for violence or nonviolence. An application to states in the former Soviet Union demonstrates the framework's utility for understanding when claims evolve to violent and nonviolent mobilization.

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A large literature has demonstrated that international action can promote the resolution of civil wars. However, international actors do not wait until violence starts to seek to manage conflicts. This article considers the ways in which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reduces the propensity for self-determination movements to escalate to civil war, through actions that directly pertain to the disputing actors or that indirectly shape actor incentives. It examines the relationship between the content of UNSC resolutions in all self-determination disputes from 1960 to 2005 and the onset of armed conflict in the disputes. The study finds that diplomatic actions that directly address disputes reduce the likelihood of armed conflict, and that military force and sanctions have more indirect preventive effects.Over the last several decades, international actorsoften working through international organizations such as the United Nations (UN)have focused increasing attention on managing violent intrastate conflict. This trend accelerated after the end of the Cold War, as efforts at the UN and other international bodies were then not stymied by superpower competition. Former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali's Agenda for Peace (1992) emphasizes four areas of action that the international community could and should undertake to promote peace: preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping and post-conflict peace building. A large body of literature has examined the effect of the latter three types of action, and many of the conclusions reached have been optimistic. Studies have concluded that the UN can be effective at building peace, 1 that peacekeeping works, 2 that mediation can help facilitate settlement 3 and that legal dispute resolution is especially effective. 4 While this literature has advanced academic understanding of the effect of international actions and has had implications for policy makers seeking to resolve violent conflicts, there is still a substantial gap in our understanding of international efforts to prevent violent intrastate conflicts. Virtually all existing work focuses on managing or resolving ongoing violent conflicts.