Making trains from boxcars: studying conflict and conflict management interdependencies

• Published in: International interactions 2021-01, Vol.47 (1), p.1-22
• Main Authors: Owsiak, Andrew P., Greig, J. Michael, Diehl, Paul F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: civil conflict; Conflict management; Conflict resolution; Interdependence; International conflict; interstate conflict; Management; Measures; Mediation; Peacekeeping
• ISSN: 0305-0629; 1547-7444
• DOI: 10.1080/03050629.2021.1848827

Research on international conflict management remains largely siloed, with studies omitting conflict events and focusing on disparate conflict management strategies (e.g., mediation, or peacekeeping); yet we know that strategies regularly interact with conflict events and one another (e.g., within the same conflict). If one imagines conflict events and conflict management strategies as train boxcars, and begins from the observation that boxcars travel in trains (i.e., collections of boxcars linked together in a purposefully constructed, meaningful way), a key question emerges: how do we build trains from conflict management strategy boxcars? How do we move from the impulse to isolate these strategies artificially and study them discretely, to theorizing about and examining the interdependence between them directly. The contributors to this special issue address that broad question. In this introductory article, we first explain the challenge at hand, outline the forms conflict management interdependence can theoretically take, and define the conflict management strategies that feature throughout the issue. We then conduct a multidimensional scaling exercise to ascertain the most promising dimensions along which to theorize conflict management interdependence. This analysis shows that the myriad conflict management strategies organize along two prominent dimensions: whether the strategy pursues a more integrative or distributive outcome, and how costly the strategy is for its user to employ. The analysis, far from being the last word, serves as an opening salvo for further research on conflict management interdependence. Finally, we discuss the various articles in this special issue, highlighting their contributions and tying them together into a few main themes. Les recherches sur la gestion internationale des conflits restent majoritairement en silo, des études omettant des événements de conflit pour se concentrer sur des stratégies disparates de gestion des conflits (p. ex. médiation ou maintien de la paix) ; cependant, nous savons que les stratégies interagissent régulièrement avec les événements de conflit et entre elles (p. ex. dans le même conflit). Si nous imaginons les événements de conflit et les stratégies de gestion des conflits comme étant des wagons, et que nous commençons par observer que les wagons se déplacent en tant que trains (c-à-d, que les wagons sont reliés ensemble d'une manière constructive, qui a un sens, dans un but très précis),