The promise of process: Evidence on ending violent international conflict

The project reported in this dissertation tests and refines existing theories on the relationship between types of negotiation processes employed during negotiations and types of outcomes achieved as a result. The hypothesis tested is that use of a problem solving type process during negotiations results in a more comprehensive outcome and that the use of a distributive bargaining type process results in a less comprehensive outcome. The analyses in this project test the hypothesis at three different levels of specificity. The first level of analysis tested the general nature of the relationship between type of process and type of outcome. The results indicate a strong, non-spurious co-variance between them. The second level of analysis investigates whether the relationship might be a causal relationship. The results of the analyses at this level support the inference that type of process causes type of outcome. The third level of analysis tested the plausibility of hypothesizing that the causal mechanism linking type of process and type of outcome is development of trust among parties during negotiations. The results of these analyses confirm that further study of trust development as a possible causal mechanism would be worthwhile.