It has long been argued in scholarly research that powerful third parties make excellent third parties due to their superior economic and military capabilities, yet surprisingly little scholarly attention has been paid to superpower mediation and bias, and how it affects post-conflict levels of bias. While it is expected that powerful mediators, with their leverage and ability to enforce peace agreements with military force will be biased mediators, cases of mediation by superpowers shows this is often not the case. By exploring the phenomenon of post-conflict levels of violence and how it is correlated with great power mediation bias, this study focuses on specific cases of superpower mediation, while allowing for the idiosyncracies of each conflict to be integrated. Guided by previous empirircal findings, this study argues that levels of post-conflict violence will be lower in countries mediated by biased superpowers due to the leverage, influence and credibility they bring to the mediation process, and ability to 'deliver their side' in negotiations. This study will employ a structured focused comparison to provide a systemic comparison to test the hypothesis on three selected conflicts, the 2001/02 India-Pakistan standoff, the Dayton Agreement and Oslo peace process.

In peace and conflict research the study of peace agreement implementation has often focussed on the duration of peace. This however risks overlooking the implementation of the peace agreement as a whole. Simultaneously, the relationship between biased versus neutral mediators and the degree of agreement implementation has not been systematically investigated. This study addresses this gap by asking: how does biased mediation affect the implementation of peace agreements? I apply the logic of theories on artificial incentives for peace (Beardsley 2008) and argue that biased mediators will create and use more temporary incentives to induce the warring parties towards a negotiated settlement. Once a peace agreement is signed and the mediator’s influence wanes, it is argued that these artificial incentives ultimately result in reduced momentum for implementation and a lower degree of implementation overall. This leads to the expected hypothesis that if a mediator is biased peace agreements will be implemented to a lower degree. Using the methods of structured, focussed comparison and process tracing, this paper will compare the mediation and implementation processes in the Tajikistan and Burundian civil wars. The findings display partial support for the hypothesised causal mechanism, although the hypothesis overall is not supported.