Search

Relational repair is a key concept to understand the maintenance and evolution of close allies' relationships. Close allies - such as some of the founding members of the Atlantic alliance - sometimes go through disputes that are serious enough to endanger their relationships. Because they attach great value to these ties, they have to find a way to overcome their deterioration, i.e., to achieve relational repair. Yet, little scholarly work has been done on the concept of relational repair among close allies after a serious dispute. This paper contributes to filling this gap by showing how relational repair processes are initiated - from the very start of the disputes - through the actions and interactions of the countries concerned. Applying some of the findings of research in sociology and social-psychology on relational repair among individuals, I show how certain actions or communications can be effective in facilitating relational repair processes among close allies during serious disputes. I illustrate these claims through the analysis and comparison of two cases of serious dispute: the Suez crisis of 1956 and the NATO crisis of 1966. Both crises opposed two close allies, France and the United States, and eventually led to relational repair between them, but they differed as to some of the actions that were undertaken by both countries during the dispute. This in turn led to differences in the evolution of the relational repair processes that took place between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]