The Conditional Efficacy of Non-State Intervention on Conflict Intensity: A Bargaining Model Perspective Open Access

Abstract

International civil society has increasingly strong influence on states’ treatment of their citizens through improved information sharing and a post-Cold War global emphasis on human rights. The tools available to the international community in encouraging good governance are varied, and produce inconsistent results in changing the target state’s behavior. I engage with a bargaining model analysis to determine which non-state intervention methods are successful at increasing the costs of war and should, therefore, result in a change in the target state’s behavior. I suspect that the efficacy of four common intervention methods, naming and shaming, peace workshops, non-armed intervention, and armed intervention, is conditioned on the ratio of battle deaths, which also affects the state’s perceived costs of war. To test this, I conduct an ordered logistic regression of the interaction of those intervention methods with the ratio of battle deaths on conflict intensity. I find a negative and significant interaction of battle deaths with unarmed peacekeeping, which ceases to be significant at the highest points of conflict intensity. This indicates that once intensity reaches a certain point, states are no longer responsive to third-party pressures, which has important implications for interventionist strategy. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which this model could be further developed, namely through the inclusion of temporal factors and formal modeling.

Table of Contents

Introduction - 1

Literature Review - 2

Theoretical Development - 7

Hypotheses - 10

Methodology - 12

Results of Statistical Analysis -14

Conclusion - 16

Figures - 18

Graph 1: Marginal Effect of Unarmed Intervention on Intensity as the Ratio of Battle Deaths Changes -18

Table 1: Ordered Logistic Regression Results: Effects of Intervention on Intensity as the Ratio of Battlefield Deaths Changes - 19

Table 2: Summary Statistics - 20

References - 21

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, International Law and Relations Political Science, International Relations Peace Studies
Keyword	Efficacy Cost Utility Bargaining Model Battlefield Deaths Conflict Intervention War Intensity Third Party
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Bowersox, Zachary, Emory University
Committee Members	Beaudette, Donald, Emory University Suhr-Sytsma, Nathan, Emory University

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