Article Cultural Influences on Mediation in International Crises

In order to assess the impact of culture on state behavior in international crises, specifically with regard to mediation and its outcome, this study tests hypotheses rooted in both the international relations and the cross-cultural psychology litera-tures, implementing analysis at both the international-system level and the domes-tic-state-actor level. At the international system level, the study finds that cultural difference between adversaries affects whether or not mediation occurs during an international crisis but has no effect on tension reduction. At the domestic state actor level, we find that there are certain facets of cultural identity that make a state more or less open to requesting or accepting third-party mediation during an inter-national crisis, but that these facets have no effect on tension reduction. Keywords international, crisis, negotiation, mediation, culture The field of international relations (IR) focuses on the interactions among states and how various factors such as power and resources influence these interactions. The field of cross-cultural psychology (CCP) focuses on how culture influence