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What Mediation Is:
Mediation is a process in which a third-party neutral assists in resolving a dispute between two or more other parties. It is a non-adversarial approach to conflict resolution. The role of the mediator is to facilitate communication between the parties, assist them in focusing on the real issues of the dispute, and generate options that meet the interests or needs of all relevant parties in an effort to resolve the conflict.
Additional insights into mediation are offered by several Beyond Intractability project participants.
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Unlike arbitration, where the intermediary listens to the arguments of both sides and makes a decision for the disputants, a mediator assists the parties to develop a solution themselves. Although mediators sometimes provide ideas, suggestions, or even formal proposals for settlement, the mediator is primarily a "process person," helping the parties define the agenda, identify and reframe the issues, communicate more effectively, find areas of common ground, negotiate fairly, and hopefully, reach an agreement. A successful mediation effort has an outcome that is accepted and owned by the parties themselves.
Where It is Used:
Mediation is widely used in all sorts of disputes, ranging from divorces to civil lawsuits to very complex public policy problems to international conflicts. Many disputes that have not responded to an initial attempt at negotiation can still be settled through mediation. Even when conflicts are seemingly intractable, they sometimes yield to mediation. Mediation is of particular importance in long-running, deep-rooted conflicts, as this type of conflict is rarely resolved without such outside assistance. Even if the full range of grievances cannot be resolved, mediation is often useful for dealing with particular limited aspects of the wider conflict.
How Mediation Works:
Although a mediator cannot force an outcome, the process is very often effective. The key is the ability of the mediator to create a more productive discussion than the parties could have had by themselves. To do this, mediators help the parties determine facts; they show empathy and impartiality with the parties; and they help the parties generate new ideas. Mediators also exercise political skill and use persuasion to get people to soften hardline positions. Often, though not always, they have a lot of background knowledge of the issues and type of dispute. Though many mediators are highly trained and experienced, not all are professionals, and they come from many different walks of life.
Lawyers often believe that the purpose of mediation is rapid and efficient settlement of a particular case. But others disagree. Sometimes the purpose of a mediation is more to improve relationships among parties who will have to deal with each other again, or even to help them learn how best to handle conflict with other parties in the future. Often, a mediator has to learn which of these purposes is most important to the parties in a particular case, and tailor the service to match, but different mediators tend to specialize in one variety of mediation or another. (Mediation that focuses on settlement is sometimes termed problem-solving mediation; mediation that focuses more on relationships is called transformative mediation.)
While many mediators pride themselves on their neutrality, some observers believe that it is impossible any human being to be truly neutral. Others have concluded that even biased mediators can be useful, as long as the bias is not hidden from any party and parties have an opportunity to protect themselves against its effects. International mediations are often of this type, because an effective international mediator is often a foreign minister or president of an influential country, even though everyone understands that the mediator's country has interests of its own. President Carter's mediation between Egypt and Israel was an example.
Example:
A high school student sits down with two others to help them stop fighting; many miles away, the Secretary-General of the United Nations is chairing a meeting of 15 ambassadors who are trying to avert a war. These two situations may not seem to have much in common. But both are forms of mediation.
Application:
In virtually every situation where negotiation is not going well, or where for one reason or another it seems impossible to get a real discussion going with the other party or parties, it's worth asking whether bringing in someone else might at least help get communication going. That someone else is likely to be, or act as, a mediator. While parties' understanding of this process varies from setting to setting, in some places it is now routine to use mediators where two decades ago there was no practice to speak of.? For example, the courts of the U.S. State of Florida alone now refer approximately 150,000 cases per year to mediation, rather than expecting the parties to fight their disputes out in trials or to work out settlements without third-party help. While most of these cases are likely relatively simple to resolve, routinizing mediation is one way to prevent conflicts from becoming intractable.
More information on different kinds of mediation, and mediation of intractable disputes can be found in associated essays:
Use the following to cite this article:
Honeyman, Christopher "Mediation." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: September 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/mediation/>.
Sources of Additional, In-depth Information on this Topic
Additional Explanations of the Underlying Concepts:
Offline (Print) Sources
Cobb, Sara. "Empowerment and Mediation: A Narrative Perspective." 9:3, July 1993.
The author investigates and critiques current concepts of empowerment, and current mediation practices designed to empower parties. She then suggests a narrative understanding of empowerment, and describes several mediation practices which follow from the narrative approach.
Click here for more info.
Fisher, Roger, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd Edition . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., April 1992.
This is an updated version of Roger Fisher's and William Ury's classic 1981 text, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. In this bestseller, Fisher, Ury, and Patton describe what they call "principled negotiation", which is basically interest-based bargaining with a few extra twists. Key ideas include: 1) separate the people from the problem; 2) negotiate interests, not positions; 3) look for mutually beneficial options; and 4) use objective criteria. This work is considered essential foundational reading for anyone interested in negotiation. Click here for more info.
Bercovitch, Jacob. "International Mediation and Dispute Settlement: Evaluating the Conditions for Successful Mediation." Negotiation Journal 7:1, January 1, 1991.
This article focuses on international mediation and highlights, through an original data set, the determinants of successful mediation in international relations.
Zartman, I. William and Saadia Touval. "International Mediation in the Post-Cold War Era." In Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict. Edited by Crocker, Chester A., Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, eds. Washington, DC : United States Institute of Peace Press, September 1996.
"Mediation is best thought of as a mode of negotiation in which a third party helps the parties find a solution which they cannot find by themselves." [p. 446] Zartman and Touval focus on mediation of violent, international, or civil conflicts. They describe why third-parties decide to mediate, why and when conflicting parties accept mediation, and what factors produce effective mediation.
Cloke, Kenneth. Mediating Dangerously: The Frontiers of Conflict Resolution (Reprint). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
This book offers new and experienced mediators a fresh vision of mediation practice. The central aim of the work is to examine the essence of the process, rather than the procedure itself. The challenge to mediate "on the edge" is posed by the author. He asks readers to question their own assumptions about how conflict should be handled as well as analyze the structures around them that may restrict the approaches available to them in addressing conflict. Cloke explores the deeper underpinnings of the transformational process of mediation in order to illuminate what exactly happens when people engage in the risky practices of forgiveness and honesty, and reveal their "authentic selves" to one another. Click here for more info.
Etzioni, Amitai. "Mediation as a World Role for the United States." In The Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence. Edited by Weiner, Eugene, ed. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1998.
The author examines the United States' potential to mediate international conflicts in the post-Cold war era. He begins by noting that the U.S. has already served as mediator in a number of cases.
Click here for more info.
Folberg, Jay and Alison Taylor. Mediation: A Comprehensive Guide to Resolving Conflicts Without Litigation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, April 1, 1984.
This book provides practical, how-to advice for mediating a variety of conflicts, including those arising from divorces, custody and visitation decisions, family conflict, neighborhood grievances, educational disagreements, environmental disputes, and problems in the workplace. Click here for more info.
Matz, David E. "Mediator Pressure and Party Autonomy: Are They Consistent With Each Other?." 10:4, October 1994.
The author observes that parties tend to be very resistant to movement. It is this inability to move which brings them to mediation. Yet the mediation literature stresses the extent to which parties may be influenced, directed and even coerced by mediators. Mediation theory emphasizes respect for party autonomy and the need to reach voluntary agreements. Click here for more info.
Greig, J. M. "Moments of Opportunity: Recognizing Conditions of Ripeness for International Mediation between Enduring Rivals." Journal of Conflict Resolution 45:6, December 1, 2001.
This article examines the factors that influence both short term and long term mediation success.
Noce, Dorothy J. Della. "Seeing Theory in Practice: An Analysis of Empathy in Mediation." 15:3, July 1999.
The author asks whether and how ideology affects mediator practice. She describes the individualist ideology that supports problem-solving approaches to mediation, and the relational ideology that informs transformative approaches. Click here for more info.
Moore, Christopher W. The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996.
This book discusses the characteristics of mediation and the increasing breadth of situations in which mediation has come to be used for resolving disputes. It offers a multitude of practical advice for how to actually carry out the mediation process. It is one of the most comprehensive works on the subject. Click here for more info.
Bush, Robert A. Baruch and Joseph P. Folger. The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, September 1, 1994.
This book is the seminal work on the subject of transformative mediation. In exploring the transformative potential of mediation, the authors contrast their perspective on the practice of mediation with the more traditional problem-solving approach. They believe empowerment and recognition among participants, should be the primary goals of the mediation process. It is argued that these effects are more valuable in the long-term than the immediate settlement of a dispute. Click here for more info.
Chupp, Mark . "When Mediation is Not Enough." 10:3, 1991.
This article analyzes the value system that dominates the present field of mediation, the author concludes that the mediator's original goal of reconciliation has been lost. Throughout the years there has been a value shift in the mediation field which is reflected in the changing use of terminology from "reconciliation" to "conflict resolution" and to "conflict management". The model that he outlines in this article has a value of inner conflict and social structure transformation at the core and uses nonviolence as a technique of conflict regulation.
Click here for more info.
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Examples Illustrating this Topic:
Online (Web) Sources
Irani, George E. "Islamic Mediation Techniques for Middle East Conflicts." , 1999
Available at: http://www.mediate.com/articles/mideast.cfm.
The purpose of this essay is to explore and analyze non-Western modes and rituals of conflict reduction in Arab-Islamic societies. - also published in Middle East Review of International Affairs vol.3 no.2
Offline (Print) Sources
Hume, Cameron R. Ending Mozambique's War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices. Herndon, VA: USIP Press, November 1, 1994.
This first-hand account of the Mozambique mediations offers intriguing details that illustrate the complexity of the multi-track mediation process. Hume, who was a participant observer in the Rome-based peace talks, relates the stages of the process to the principles of conflict management, negotiation, and mediation in a clear and graceful style. He delineates the separate roles played by the parties themselves (the government and RENAMO), the outside governments that intervened, and the mediators, with a special focus on the unique element in this peace process: the involvement of a private voluntary organization, the Community of Sant'Egidio.
Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World. Herndon, VA: USIP Press, January 1, 2000.
This major edited volume presents a broad look at the process of international mediation and the significant amount of complexity the process presents. The essays and case studies in this volume were written by experienced international mediators and include a combination of straightforward analysis and engaging narratives.
Kolb, Deborah M. When Talk Works: Profiles of Mediators. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, August 1997.
This book presents twelve in-depth profiles of professional and volunteer mediators, revealing how experienced mediators handle a variety of situations. Click here for more info.
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