Elusive Settlements in Regional Conflict Complexes: Syria, Zartman, and the Limits of Ripeness Theory

Abstract

Abstract What are the conditions for a civil war’s ‘ripeness for resolution’ when the conflict itself is regionally and internationally complex? The failure of sustained efforts for a comprehensive peace agreement toward ending Syria’s brutal civil war suggests that the ripeness concept has significant limits when international actors become extensively involved as protagonists in civil wars. This article presents Zartman’s theory of ripeness for international mediation to de-escalate internal armed conflict and assesses the contribution and limits of this theory in regional conflict complexes such as Syria. I argue that in regional conflict complexes the ripeness concept requires a certain multidimensionality: the barriers to progress to bring a conflict to fruition may lie with the complexities of international coalitions more than it does the within-country perceptions of protagonists, dynamics of power among them, threat, and sheer exhaustion after a protracted civil war. Civil wars with deep regional and international entanglements like Syria’s place high demands on concepts such as ripeness due the inherent deep complexity of interplay between international and domestic interactions.