The spatial contagion of international mediation

Abstract

If conflicts cluster in space, does this also apply to international mediation? In light of the spatial dependency of armed conflicts, this paper develops a theoretical framework based on the mechanisms of norm diffusion for why we may also observe international mediation contagion in certain regions. Specifically, the author derives the hypothesis that mediation could diffuse across those disputes that are closely linked to each other geographically. The empirical analysis of this argument employs data from the International Crisis Behavior project, which covers international crises and mediation onsets between 1918 and 2007. The results show that mediation does indeed cluster in space, while the findings become even stronger when taking into account more recent crises only. The article concludes that knowledge about the spatial contagion of international mediation is likely to be of great interest to policy-makers and scholars alike.