Replication Data for: Secrecy and Self-Interest: When Mediators Act Deceitfully

3rd party intervention in interstate conflict is a common strategy for mitigating conflict and obtaining a final agreement. However, not all mediations are successful, leading to the development of a rich literature on the mechanisms which decrease the probability of failure in a 3rd-party intervention. Within this literature, some studies examine how a mediator’ behavior and incentives affect the result of the mediation. Virtually all these studies assume that the mediator is virtuous such that peace is the most desired outcome of a conflict for her. However, this study challenges this assumption and contends that a mediator can gain benefit from the conflict between disputants. If this benefit is adequately large to overcome the benefits of peace, then the mediator has enough incentive not to conduct the mediation toward a peaceful outcome. We develop a signaling game model to study this issue formally and test the proposed hypothesis empirically.

第三方介入国家间冲突，是缓解冲突、达成最终协议的常用策略。然而，并非所有调解均可取得成功，由此催生了大量围绕降低第三方干预失败概率的机制展开探讨的研究文献。在该类研究文献中，部分学者探讨了调解方的行为与激励如何影响调解成效。几乎所有此类研究均预设调解方秉持德性，即和平是冲突调解方最为期望达成的目标。但本研究对这一预设提出挑战，主张调解方可从争端双方的冲突中获取收益。若该收益足够可观，足以抵消和平调解所能带来的收益，则调解方将拥有充足动机，不以促成和平结局的方式开展调解工作。本研究构建信号博弈模型（signaling game model）对该问题进行形式化分析，并通过实证检验验证所提出的研究假说。