Abstract
On December 31, 1958, a crisis developed between Guatemala and Mexico. At issue were fishing rights and control over territorial waters. What started as a small incident quickly evolved into a conflict between the two countries that brought them to the brink of war. And while it seemed that all the ingredients were in place for a full scale war, the crisis was resolved peacefully shifting the two countries toward a positive reciprocal path. The four variables of power asymmetry, issue saliency, images, and particularly prospect theory domain of operation are used to help us understand the evolution of this case. The case illustrates the utility of prospect theory when evaluating the possibility of a positive or a negative reciprocal cycle, stressing that a positive cycle is possible even under conditions of an escalating dispute if the actors operate from the domain of gains.
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Notes
- 1.
The accepted relevant governing international treaty, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, was not complete until 1982.
- 2.
This conceptualization of the domain is also more in line with the traditional approach of prospect theory. Furthermore, whenever there is a conflict between the internal and strategic assessment the latter should carry more weight.
- 3.
Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes was born in Pueblo Nuevo, Guatemala in 1895. Ydígoras graduated from the Academia Militar de Guatemala in 1915. He was a general and served as military governor of the departments of Retalhuleu, Petén, Jalapa, and San Marcos (1922–1939). He was also the chief of the highway department (1939–1944). In 1950, Ydígoras ran as a candidate for president of Guatemala, but lost the elections to Jacobo Arbenz. He ran again in 1958 when he won elections and took the office on March 2, 1958. His presidency was marked with fierce opposition and in March 1963 he was taken out of power by his minister of defense, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who proclaimed a state of emergency and cancelled the elections planned for December (Peralta Azurdia abolished the constitution of 1956, dissolved the Congress and assumed complete power, initiating a political military predominance. This coup was preceded by years of violent resistance and the institution of the Rebellious Armed forces (FAR) group that continued active and violent resistance to the government over the next 30 years (Ebel 1998).
- 4.
Mateos was born in Atizaphan de Zaragoza in the state of Mexico on May 26, 1909. His father died when he was a young boy and the mother moved with the family to Mexico City where she supported her children by herself. Mateos received his education on scholarships, but he was not a great student. Mateos was able to complete law school in 1934. He became involved in politics during the presidential campaign of 1929 supporting Vasconcelos (the opposition candidate). When involved in some campaign activities he and his friends were attacked by gunmen; one of his friends was killed and Mateos fled to Guatemala for few months. Upon return to Mexico, Mateos entered the government bureaucracy and for 10 years or so went almost unnoticed. Yet, after he gave a speech in a party event (1941) the local political boss Fabela recognized Mateos’ political talent and placed him in positions like alternate federal senator, the director of the state Literary and Scientific Institute, and then made him a senator. Even though Mateos was a successful president, he was a very sick person who suffered greatly from migraines that eventually caused his death in 1969 (Camp 1995; Krauze 1997).
- 5.
Alternatively, if the Mexican break of diplomatic relation is considered as reciprocation then the first complete interaction was a negative one but we still do not see the development of a negative cycle. Furthermore and as discussed above, the critical juncture began with the Mexican severing of diplomatic ties with Guatemala and so this completed incidents unfolded before T1.
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Niv-Solomon, A. (2017). The Power of Context: Prospect Theory, Domains of Operation, and Reciprocity. In: Cooperation and Protracted Conflict in International Affairs . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45805-2_4
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