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Mediation is a popular process to prevent conflicts over common resources, but there is little clean insight into its effectiveness and mechanisms. Our experimental approach allows for a comprehensive analysis of third-party intervention into potential conflicts and circumvents key problems linked to the analysis of field data. A mediator who credibly threatens punishment in the case of uncooperative behavior achieves the efficient solution in most cases. Similar results are obtained even if the mediator is biased toward one party or has no incentive to intervene. When cooperation fails, communication without credible punishment threats leads to particularly low payouts for the "losing" party. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Switzerland is examined as a model for the successful accommodation of cleavage groups. An overview of the history of conflicts between groups with linguistic & religious differences is followed by a look at the impact of political institutions, especially federalism, on the management of territorially based cleavages. An examination of Swiss cleavage management from both constructivist & historical institutionalism perspectives focuses on the discourse surrounding the multicultural political order & the process of identity building. Consideration is also given to the effect of historical patterns of institution building & such non-institutional factors as socioeconomic differences. It is concluded that successful accommodation has been the result of both federal institutions that allow cleavage groups a broad range of autonomous policy-making powers & the promotion by political actors of a political discourse centered on Switzerland's multicultural character. The Swiss example illustrates that the successful management of territorial cleavages depends on strong nonmajoritarian devices, development of multicultural identities, & the willingness of elites to contain growing divisions. 93 References. J. Lindroth

There is widespread recognition of a democratic deficit in global governance. While recognizing this deficit is easy, remedying it is going to be hard. Many existing proposals for global democratization are not very imaginative in that they begin from the

AbstractThis article asks whether international law is moving towards a more unified constitutional order or whether differentiated types of constitutional processes are emerging. We study the sequencing and ratification pace of 32 'quasi-constitutional' international agreements containing procedural guidelines for inter-state relations and fundamental human rights provisions for individuals drawn up between 1945 and 2007. We do so in a comparative and quantitative fashion applying sophisticated statistical tools, namely event history techniques combined with counting processes. On the basis of our multi-treaty framework, the findings do not lend support to a unified and quick process of global constitutionalisation. Rather, they provide evidence for the idea of a 'multi-speed globe' of differentiated constitutionalisation. We also make a first attempt to study antecedents to global constitutionalisation. Our findings show that processes of global constitutionalisation vary across regime types and world regions (while there is no effect for new and old states).

Typically a field for political theorists, deliberative democracy is becoming more empirical using a diverse array of methodologies for investigation of a variety of real-world settings. Yet moving forward, this field faces the three distinct challenges of booming diversity in conceptualizing deliberation, appropriate methodological tools, & development of a more unified & analytical framework. The standard conception has a strong Habermasian orientation, while more recent conceptions are closely linked to criticism of Habermasian discourse models as being impossible to achieve in the real world & having undesirable & potentially exclusionary side-effects due to its strong focus on rational discourse & consensus. Even as new directions are welcomed in empirical research, growing diversity raises issues of theoretical coherence in deliberative theory, & empirical contributions have been unable to draw a clear line between true deliberative & strategic action despite increasing methodological sophistication. Although computer assisted textual analysis can speed up data collection, empirical analyses remain time consuming & applying multilevel statistical models creates serious issues. A more unified analytical framework that enriches institutional approaches with individual-level characteristics & psychologically relevant factors would also lead to a fuller understanding of deliberative processes. References. L. Reed

An under-researched topic in German politics is the systematic assessment of the nature and quality of its political discourse. Since absolute standards of high and low discourse quality are difficult to establish, we explore discourse quality - defined in deliberative terms as more or less respect - in a comparative fashion by contrasting the German Bundestag with the Swiss Nationalrat. We find that the government-opposition setting in Germany decreases the quality of political discourse (despite frequent institutional pressures to find agreement). In comparison with the Swiss grand coalition setting, respect scores are clearly lower. While political culture does not make a difference for discourse quality, partisan status and strategies strongly affect it. Adapted from the source document.

Two challenges stand out in the study of deliberation: the development of appropriate methodological tools and the development of more unified analytical frameworks. On the one hand, analysing deliberative processes is demanding and time-consuming; hence we tend to have only few and non-randomly selected cases at the group or context level. In addition, the real world of deliberation presents us with a complex matrix of nested, cross-classified, and repeated speakers. This article shows that Bayesian multi-level modelling provides an elegant way to tackle these methodological problems. On the other hand, we attempt to enrich comparative institutionalism with individual characteristics and psychologically relevant variables (such as group composition). Focusing on Swiss and German parliamentary debates we show that institutional factors - in particular, consensus systems -, the gender composition of committees and plenary sessions, and age matter for the quality of deliberation. Furthermore, we also show that partisan affiliation - government or opposition status of MPs - affects deliberative quality and can refine institutional arguments. We conclude that a multi-level approach to deliberation focusing on contextual and actor-related characteristics and using Bayesian hierarchical modelling paves the way toward a more advanced understanding - and methodological handling - of deliberative processes. Adapted from the source document.

Our research project addressed two questions: (1) are there favorable contexts for deliberation in legislatures? & (2) does deliberation also matter for outcomes? We found that consensus institutions, presidentialism, second chambers, non-publicity, & low-issue polarization further deliberation, particularly by enhancing respectful exchanges among participants. We also found that unanimous or nearly unanimous decisions were typically associated with high-quality deliberation in the preceding debates, while deliberation was almost without any effect on the substantive outcome dimension (conceptualized as more & less egalitarian decisions). 33 References. Adapted from the source document.