The Challenge of Forging Consent to UN Mediation in Internationalized Civil Wars: The Case of Syria

What is it about?

This article analyzes how the internationalization of civil wars influences conflict parties’ consent to UN mediation processes. Illustrated by the UN mediation in Syria, I argue that internationalization influences consent directly by obstructing the advent of a costly stalemate and making it more difficult for UN mediators to present themselves as impartial third parties, and indirectly by reducing UN mediators’ leverage and thereby limiting their tools to foster consent. The article makes three contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of internationalization on conflict parties’ consent. Second, it provides a long-term analysis of UN mediation in Syria from 2012-2020. Third, it contributes to a broader discussion about how civil wars end. This is of particular relevance as the prioritization of a political over a military end to civil wars, which was dominant in the early post-Cold War period, is no longer unquestioned.

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