Mediating International Crises

Wilkenfeld, Jonathan; Young, Kathleen; Asal, Victor; Quinn, David M.

doi:10.1177/0022002703252365

Cited by 73 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…These can be as simple and ordinary as haggling over a price in the market or deciding what television show to watch. Negotiation issues can also involve issues where millions of lives are at stake, such as interstate disputes [32] and nuclear disarmament [3]. No matter what the domain, the negotiation process itself is not an easy task.…”

Section: Research Methodology Motivation and Domain Descriptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling agents based on aspiration adaptation theory

Rosenfeld

Kraus

2010

Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst

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Creating agents that realistically simulate and interact with people is an important problem. In this paper we present strong empirical evidence that such agents should be based on bounded rationality, and specifically on key elements from Aspiration Adaptation Theory (AAT). First, we analyzed the strategies people described they would use to solve two relatively basic optimization problems involving one and two parameters. Second, we studied the agents a different group of people wrote to solve these same problems. We then studied two realistic negotiation problems involving five and six parameters. Again, first we studied the negotiation strategies people used when interacting with other people. Then we studied two state of the art automated negotiation agents and negotiation sessions between these agents and people. We found that in both the optimizing and negotiation problems the overwhelming majority of automated agents and people used key elements from AAT, even when optimal solutions, machine learning techniques for solving multiple parameters, or bounded techniques other than AAT could have been implemented. We discuss the implications of our findings including suggestions for designing more effective agents for game and simulation environments.We would like to acknowledge the many productive conversations and visits with Prof. Reinhard Selten, Dr. Martin Hohnisch, and Sabine Pittnauer of the University of Bonn. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments, as well as

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Section: Research Methodology Motivation and Domain Descriptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling agents based on aspiration adaptation theory

Rosenfeld

Kraus

2010

Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst

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“…From this perspective, mediation can assist disputants in overcoming information asymmetries and enhance the possibility of credible commitments to settle violent conflicts (see Beardsley et al, 2006;Walter, 1997;Wilkenfeld et al, 2005). This line of research has helped understand how, when and why mediation can work.…”

Section: Modeling Mediation and The Effects Of Mediation On Conflictsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Will we see helping hands? Predicting civil war mediation and likely success

Clayton

Gleditsch

2013

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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Abstract:We examine whether features highlighted as important for mediation in existing research allow us to predict when we will see mediation and likely success out-of-sample.We assess to what extent information about the characteristics of the conflicting dyads and conflict history can be evaluated ex ante and improve our ability to predict when conflicts will see mediation as well as when peaceful solutions are more likely to follow from mediation. We justify that the information used to generate predictions through the model can be assessed ex ante, using the ongoing conflict in Syria as an example. Our results suggest that a two stage model of mediation and success seems to do relatively well overall in predicting when mediation is likely to occur, but notably less well in predicting the outcome of mediation. This may reflect how ex ante observable structural characteristics are likely to influence willingness to mediate, while the outcome of mediation to a large extent will be influenced by unobservable characteristics or private information and how these are influenced by mediation. We discuss the usefulness of out-of-sample evaluation in studying conflict management and suggest future directions for improving our ability to forecast mediation.

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“…Building upon previous work (Wilkenfeld et al, 2003(Wilkenfeld et al, , 2005, we examine the way mediation…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Building upon previous work (Wilkenfeld et al, 2003(Wilkenfeld et al, , 2005, we examine the way mediation Power Play 443 to occur in high-intensity conflicts, like international crises. 1 Employing data from the International Crisis Behavior project (Brecher and Wilkenfeld, 2000), we find that of 374 international crises between 1918 and 2003, 2 97 cases, or 26%, were characterized by power symmetry-that is, equal power among crisis actors-with the remaining 74% characterized by power asymmetry among the crisis actors.…”

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confidence: 99%

Power Play: Mediation in Symmetric and Asymmetric International Crises

Quinn

Wilkenfeld

Smarick³

et al. 2006

International Interactions

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International relations scholars have long focused on power relations among nations as an explanatory factor for a wide variety of state behaviors, including alliance formation, strategic interactions, and negotiation strategies. Power transition theorists have argued that war is most likely when power is equally distributed among nations or, more precisely, when the power of the challenger approaches-or begins to exceed-that of its opponent (Organski, 1968;Organski and Kugler, 1980; Kugler and Lemke, 1996). Balance of power theorists, on the other hand, have argued that equality of power among nations diminishes the chance of war, as uncertainty about outcomes caused by approximate power parity leads actors to be more cautious (Claude, 1962;Wright, 1965). The research presented here considers relative power not as a cause of conflict, as these previous studies have done, but as a factor relevant to conflict resolution efforts.In this study, we focus on crises as a specific instance of conflicts in the international system and on mediation as a specific conflict resolution measure. Building upon previous work (Wilkenfeld et al., 2003(Wilkenfeld et al., , 2005, we examine the way mediation

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Mediating International Crises

Cited by 73 publications

References 34 publications

Modeling agents based on aspiration adaptation theory

Modeling agents based on aspiration adaptation theory

Will we see helping hands? Predicting civil war mediation and likely success

Power Play: Mediation in Symmetric and Asymmetric International Crises

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