Peace Talk and Conflict Traps
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866908654175780864 |
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| author | Gyarmathy, Andrei Lukyanov, Georgy |
| author_facet | Gyarmathy, Andrei Lukyanov, Georgy |
| contents | Costly pre-play messages can deter unnecessary wars - but the same messages can also entrench stalemates once violence begins. We develop an overlapping-generations model of a security dilemma with persistent group types (normal vs bad), one-sided private signaling by the current old to the current young, and noisy private memory of the last encounter. We characterize a stationary equilibrium in which, for an intermediate band of signal costs, normal old agents mix on sending a costly reassurance only after an alarming private history; the signal is kept marginally persuasive by endogenous receiver cutoffs and strategic mimicking by bad types. Signaling strictly reduces the hazard of conflict onset; conditional on onset, duration is unchanged in the private model but increases once a small probability of publicity (leaks) creates a public record of failed reconciliation. With publicity, play generically absorbs in a peace trap or a conflict trap. We discuss welfare and policy: when to prefer back-channels versus public pledges. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_11580 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Peace Talk and Conflict Traps Gyarmathy, Andrei Lukyanov, Georgy Theoretical Economics Costly pre-play messages can deter unnecessary wars - but the same messages can also entrench stalemates once violence begins. We develop an overlapping-generations model of a security dilemma with persistent group types (normal vs bad), one-sided private signaling by the current old to the current young, and noisy private memory of the last encounter. We characterize a stationary equilibrium in which, for an intermediate band of signal costs, normal old agents mix on sending a costly reassurance only after an alarming private history; the signal is kept marginally persuasive by endogenous receiver cutoffs and strategic mimicking by bad types. Signaling strictly reduces the hazard of conflict onset; conditional on onset, duration is unchanged in the private model but increases once a small probability of publicity (leaks) creates a public record of failed reconciliation. With publicity, play generically absorbs in a peace trap or a conflict trap. We discuss welfare and policy: when to prefer back-channels versus public pledges. |
| title | Peace Talk and Conflict Traps |
| topic | Theoretical Economics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11580 |