Mediation Unchecked: A Study of Superpowers' Strategies in Armed Conflict Mediation

Mgr. Hagar Mohamed Mosaad Farag

Master's thesis

Abstract:

“Mediation Unchecked” aims to discover the behavioral and instrumental development that superpowers, the United States of America and Russia, have undergone while engaging into international conflict mediations. Mediation literature has not dedicated thorough examination to the diachronic nexus between superpowers strategies and their transformations in conflict mediation. The present study addresses this goal by setting a comparative case-study analysis between superpower conflict mediations during the Cold War and early post-Cold War years on the one hand, and current time mediations on the other hand, exemplified in the case-studies of Yemen, Syria and Libya mediations. The thesis has utilized an instrumental case-study approach for examining superpower mediation instruments used in the present and retrospectively in the past. The present study argues that current superpower mediations, while similar to Cold War and early post-Cold War mediations, tangibly differ in instruments and tactics utilized as illustrated in the selected case-studies. The researcher thus foresees that future superpower mediations will continue to be a foreign policy tool and an instrument of leverage; however, it will change in its dynamics and instruments in contrast with superpower mediations in the past. Conflict character and regional environment will shape superpower mediation behaviors and instruments rather than superpowers’ global rivalry for improvement of relative positions.

Abstract:

“Mediation Unchecked” aims to discover the behavioral and instrumental development that superpowers, the United States of America and Russia, have undergone while engaging into international conflict mediations. Mediation literature has not dedicated thorough examination to the diachronic nexus between superpowers strategies and their transformations in conflict mediation. The present study addresses this goal by setting a comparative case-study analysis between superpower conflict mediations during the Cold War and early post-Cold War years on the one hand, and current time mediations on the other hand, exemplified in the case-studies of Yemen, Syria and Libya mediations. The thesis has utilized an instrumental case-study approach for examining superpower mediation instruments used in the present and retrospectively in the past. The present study argues that current superpower mediations, while similar to Cold War and early post-Cold War mediations, tangibly differ in instruments and tactics utilized as illustrated in the selected case-studies. The researcher thus foresees that future superpower mediations will continue to be a foreign policy tool and an instrument of leverage; however, it will change in its dynamics and instruments in contrast with superpower mediations in the past. Conflict character and regional environment will shape superpower mediation behaviors and instruments rather than superpowers’ global rivalry for improvement of relative positions.

Keywords

Superpower, mediations, instruments, Cold War, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Strategies, Conflict Mediations.

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 21. 12. 2016

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 26. 1. 2017
• Supervisor: Mgr. Martin Chovančík, Ph.D.
• Reader: Mgr. Jana Urbanovská, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Studies

Master programme / field:
Political Science / European Politics (Eng.)