Since the end of the Cold War, two significant political phenomena have attracted a considerable amount of attention of researchers in political science and related fields: the politicization of history and third-party intervention in domestic jurisdiction matters or bilateral issues. Particularly interesting is the fact that these two not only coexist but are also intertwined in the form of third-party intervention in historical issues.

Previous studies on historical issues have presupposed that historical issues are bilateral conflicts, leaving studies on the third-party practically nonexistent, and the literature on third-party intervention has largely ignored the motives for it and its effects on the relationship between the intervener and the intervened. This study fills these gaps.

The case explored in this paper is the issue of genocide recognition of the Armenian Massacre. The predecessor of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, allegedly deported and killed hundreds of thousands of Armenians residing in its territory during World War I. The Armenian government and the Armenian diaspora demand that Turkey admit it was genocide and apologize. However, the Turkish government has not offered an apology to date. Consequently, the Armenian side requests foreign governments to officially recognize the atrocities as genocide, while Turkey threatens them with potential deterioration of bilateral ties. This case is the most notable example of historical issues involving third-party intervention and, therefore, the best case for this research.

The results of this study can be summarized as follows. As for the causes, cross-national and time-series qualitative analyses reveal that the genocide is mainly recognized by countries with a Christian majority and large Armenian communities. International norms of human rights also play an important role.

Regarding the effects, two aspects of bilateral relationships are examined. First, simple observations of official diplomatic relations show that the Turkish government usually recalls its ambassadors from recognizing countries immediately after recognition, but it sends him/her back after several months, preventing further damage to the relationship. Second, panel data analyses on the amount of bilateral trade and the number of foreign visitors illustrate that there are statistically significant negative effects of genocide recognition, but these effects only last for a few years at most. To summarize, genocide recognition imposes a negative impact on bilateral relations between Turkey and the recognizer in the short run, but the deterioration is only temporary.