Work

Biased Mediators in Conflict Resolution

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: One of the most important and disputed questions within the fields of international relations and conflict studies concerns the issue of mediator impartiality. Should mediators be biased—supportive of one but not both of the main disputants—or should mediators always be impartial? This paper contributes to this debate by studying the effectiveness of mediation with regard to the role of mediator bias in a game-theoretic model of cheap talk. This study shows that the institutional design of a mediation process is affected by two factors: the relative degree of conflict and the incentives to misrepresent private information. We find that a necessary (but not always sufficient) condition for the success of a mediation process is a sufficiently low likelihood of a misrepresentation problem. If in addition, the relative degree of conflict is low enough, mediation is effective, and the institutional design of a mediation process is the same regardless of the bias. Otherwise, the design will be quite different depending on the direction of the bias.

Source: American Law and Economics Review

DOI: 10.1093/aler/ahad014

Author: Andrés Salamanca

Institution: Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Language: English

Topic: Game Theory and Applications

Subfield: Management Science and Operations Research

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche