International Mediation

Conflicts in the international system, both among and within states, bring death, destruction, and human misery. Understanding how third parties use mediation to encourage settlements and establish a durable peace among belligerents is vital for managing these conflicts. Among many features, this book empirically examines the history of post-World War II mediation efforts to: Chart the historical changes in the types of conflicts that mediation addresses and the links between different mediation efforts across time. Explore the roles played by providers of mediation in the international system - namely, individuals, states, and organizations - in managing violent conflicts. Gauge the influence of self-interest and altruism as motivating forces that determine which conflicts are mediated and which are ignored. Evaluate what we know about the willingness of parties in conflict to accept mediation, when and why it is most effective, and discuss the future challenges facing mediators in the contemporary world. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Oslo Accords and Good Friday Agreement to efforts to manage the civil wars in Burundi, Tajikistan, and Bosnia, this book is an indispensable guide to international mediation for students, practitioners, and general readers seeking to understand better how third parties can use mediation to deal with the globe’s trouble spots.

This volume brings together some of the most significant papers on international conflict mediation by Professor Jacob Bercovitch, one of the leading scholars in the field. It has become common practice to note that mediation has been, and remains, one of the most important structures of dealing with and resolving social conflicts. Irrespective of the level of political or social organization, of their location in time and space, and of the political sophistication of a society, mediation has always been there to help deal with conflicts. As a method of conflict management, the practice of settling disputes through intermediaries has had a rich history in all cultures, both Western and non-Western. In some non-Western countries (especially in the Middle East and China) mediation has been the most important and enduring structure of conflict resolution. Jacob Bercovitch has been at the forefront of developments in international conflict mediation for more than 25 years, and is generally recognized as one of the most important scholars in the field. His theoretical and empirical analyses have come to define the parameters in the study of mediation. This volume will help scholars and practitioners trace the history of the field, its position today and its future and will be of much interest to all students of mediation, negotiation, conflict management, international security and international relations in general.

This book evaluates the role of international mediators in bringing civil wars to an end and makes the case for ‘powerful peacemaking’ – using incentives and sanctions – to leverage parties into peace. As internal violence within countries is a hugely significant threat to international peace in the post-Cold War era, the question of how these wars end has become an urgent research and policy question. This volume explores a critical aspect of peacemaking that has yet to be sufficiently evaluated: the turbulent period beyond the onset of formal or open negotiations to end civil wars and the clinching of an initially sustainable negotiated settlement. The book argues that the transnational flow of weapons, resources, and ideas means that when civil wars today end, they are more likely to do so at the negotiating table than on the battlefield. It uses bargaining theory to develop an analytical framework to evaluate peace processes – moving from stalemate in wars to negotiated settlement – and it rigorously analyses the experiences of five cases of negotiated transitions from war and the role of international mediators: South Africa, Liberia, Burundi, Kashmir, and Sri Lanka.

This volume aims to provide a detailed explanation of the effects of cooperation and coordination on international multiparty mediation in conflicts. Contemporary scholarship stresses that the crucial ingredients for a successful multiparty mediation are ‘consistency in interests’ and ‘cooperation and coordination’ between mediators. This book seeks to supplement that understanding by investigating how much the ‘consistency of interests’ and ‘cooperation and coordination’ affect the overall process, and what happens to the mediation process when mediating parties do not share the same idea and interest in finding a common solution. At the same time, it explores the obstacles in achieving coordination and coherence between various mediators in such an environment and how to surmount the problems that multiple mediators face when operating without a ‘common script’ in attempting to mediate a negotiated settlement. The study investigates three distinct mechanisms (both on the systemic and contextual level) that have the potential to deter defection from a (potential) member of the multiparty mediation coalition: geo-political shifts, changes in the conflict dynamics, and mediators’ ability to bargain for a cooperative relationship. As the number of states and international actors that are involved in mediation increases, a careful assessment is necessary not only of their relative institutional strengths and weaknesses, but also of how to promote complementary efforts and how to synchronize the whole process when one actor is transferring the responsibilities for mediation to others. This book will be of much interest to students of mediation, conflict management, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/International-Multiparty-Mediation-and-Conflict-Management-Challenges-of/Vukovic/p/book/9781138087897, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This collection of essays situates the study and practice of international mediation and peaceful settlement of disputes within a changing global context. The book is organized around issues of concern to practitioners, including the broader regional, global, and institutional context of mediation and how this broader environment shapes the opportunities and prospects for successful mediation. A major theme is complexity, and how the complex contemporary context presents serious challenges to mediation. This environment describes a world where great-power rivalries and politics are coming back into play, and international and regional organizations are playing different roles and facing different kinds of constraints in the peaceful settlement of disputes. The first section discusses the changing international environment for conflict management and reflects on some of the challenges that this changing environment raises for addressing conflict. Part II focuses on the consequences of bringing new actors into third-party engagement and examines what may be harbingers for how we will attempt to resolve conflict in the future. The third section turns to the world of practice, and discusses mediation statecraft and how to employ it in this current international environment. The volume aims to situate the practice and study of mediation within this wider social and political context to better understand the opportunities and constraints of mediation in today’s world. The value of the book lies in its focus on complex and serious issues that challenge both mediators and scholars. This volume will be of much interest to students, practitioners, and policymakers in the area of international negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution and international relations.

This collection of twelve essays examines the use of mediation in intranational as well as international disputes so that parallels and similarities between various approaches could be emphasized and the whole approach viewed as a universal means of managing human conflict. Initial chapters treat mediation as a concept, beginning with an analysis by editors Mitchell and Webb entitled Mediation in International Relations: An Evolving Tradition. Other contributors examine the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, outline lessons from the South Tyrol on third-party mediation in national minority disputes, and analyze mediation attempts by the World Council of Churches in the Sudan Civil War. South African initiatives and the use of hypergames as an aid to mediation are also discussed. A concluding essay on Paradigms, Movements, and Shifts as indicators of social invention concludes the volume. The editors' introduction attempts to link the various topics and to place each contribution within the overall approach and philosophy of the book. Innovations are characterized into three types: innovation in the applications of mediatory processes, innovation of technique with the development of new forms of mediation, and innovation of practitioner, with new organizations and individuals acting as intermediaries. The interdisciplinary approach of this work and the efforts of its editors to provide a broad analytical framework for the study of mediation will make this volume useful for political science and history courses. It will also serve as a useful guide to policymakers and diplomats.

This book examines the use of third-party mediation as a conflict resolution method. In an attempt to explain why some, but not all, conflicts are mediated, this work argues that diverse conflict structures are inherently different in their susceptibility to mediation attempts. By offering a systematic method for measuring the transformability of conflict structures, this book contributes to our understanding of the sufficient and necessary conditions for mediation. In addition, the study offers an analytical framework for the examination of mediation as a trilateral rational bargaining process. Although the general concept of mediation as a three-person game is not new, most studies focus on either the disputants' perspectives or the mediator's perspective. In contrast, this study integrates the perspectives of all three parties. The framework links the different stages involved in the whole process of mediation, from the onset of mediation, through the mediation strategies used, to the outcome, rather than focusing on one particular aspect. The book applies the framework to two case studies – the conflict between Israel and Egypt and the conflict between India and Pakistan – and provides new insights into these conflicts from a mediation perspective. In general, the model developed here provides a framework for systematically assessing conflicts and the options available to those involved in the mediation process. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, mediation, war and conflict studies, Asian politics, Middle Eastern politics and IR in general.

This book examines how new empirical approaches to mediation can shed fresh light on the effectiveness of different patterns of conflict management, and offers guidelines on the process of international mediation. International conflict mediation has become one of, if not the most prominent and important conflict resolution methods of the early 21st century. This book argues that traditional approaches to mediation have been inadequate, and that in order to really understand how the process of international mediation works, studies need to operate within an explicit theoretical framework, adopt systematic empirical approaches and use a diversity of methods to identify critical interactions, contexts and relationships. This volume captures recent important changes in the field of international conflict mediation, and includes essays by leading scholars on a variety of critical aspects of conflict management, using state of the art analytical tools and up to date data. This book will of great interest to scholars of peace and conflict studies, methods in social science, and of International Relations in general.