Peacemaking for Power-sharing: The Role of Kin-states

Abstract

The thesis considers an understudied form of third party peacemaking, namely peacemaking interventions with kin-state involvement. The main research question this thesis seeks to analyse is how local actors, their kin-states and third party peacemakers interact within the context of a peacemaking intervention for power-sharing in deeply divided societies. The literature on third party peacemaking largely neglects the role of kin-states in peacemaking, while in the literature on power-sharing the role of external actors, including kin-states, remains understudied. This thesis aims to address these gaps by investigating the recent peacemaking interventions for power-sharing with kin-state involvement in Cyprus, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. The findings of the case studies are combined and assessed through the use of a five-level analytical framework, which includes the local actors level; the local actors-third party peacemaker level; the local actors-kin-state(s) level; the third party peacemaker-kin-state(s) level; and the kin-states level. The analysis identifies a number of conditions pertinent to each of these levels which affect peacemaking interventions for power-sharing in deeply divided societies with kin-state involvement. There are two main original contributions of this thesis to the above mentioned literatures. First, it proposes a typology of kin-state involvement in peacemaking, which categorises kin-state involvement into four roles: promoter; quasi-mediator; power-broker; and enforcer. Second, through the use of game theoretical analysis, more specifically a nested games approach, it illustrates how the interaction between local actors, their kin-states and third party peacemakers can be modelled in the context of a peacemaking intervention for power-sharing. The empirical and theoretical conclusions of this study indicate that kin-state involvement in third peacemaking interventions is more complex and fluid than widely assumed.