The occurrence of outside mediation and peacekeeping has increased exponentially since the end of the Cold War. But how do third-party states and international organizations decide which civil wars to intervene in? And how do they decide whether to mediate talks between the warring parties or to send peacekeepers? In this study, we propose that third parties are influenced by their interests in a civil war country, they take into account the urgency a civil war poses, and they shy away from particularly challenging civil wars. Empirical tests confirm some of these hypotheses but also yield some contrary results. In contrast to much of the empirical literature, which has mostly treated different conflict management tools separately, this study combines two of the most important aspects of international conflict management – mediation and peacekeeping – into one theoretical framework.