This book explains how facilitative mediators, those without material leverage, contribute to progress in peace negotiations. While existing theories of mediation have offered suggestions about what a mediator should get parties to do to reach an agreement, the puzzle that has remained is: how does a mediator get parties to do what is prescribed? The book argues that a communication perspective is key to understanding facilitative mediation and that framing is the main mechanism by which facilitative mediation functions. Based on an empirical analysis of the United Nations mediation in El Salvador between 1990 and 1992, the work breaks new ground by uncovering three underlying mechanisms that explain how a mediator can get their framing adopted by the negotiating parties, thereby advancing the negotiations. The book offers a novel theory of facilitative mediation as framing and an innovative methodological approach that focuses on negotiation impasses to study the process of how negotiations progress. Practitioners will also appreciate the framework for thinking about when and how framing and reframing can be used to increase mediation’s effectiveness as a tool for ending armed conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, negotiation, Latin American politics, and International Relations, as well as practitioners.

Contemporary Peacemaking draws on recent experience to identify and explore the essential components of peace processes. The book is organized around five key themes in peacemaking: planning for peace; negotiations; violence on peace processes; peace accords; and peace accord implementation and post-war reconstruction.

This empowering guide goes beyond observable techniques to offer a close look at the creative internal processes--both cognitive and psychological--that successful mediators and other conflict resolvers draw upon.

Provides mediators and other professionals who use mediationsuch as lawyers, therapists, and personnel managerswith comprehensive, step-by-step instruction in effective dispute resolution strategies.

A guide to the practice of mediation as a means of resolving conflict, this short how-to manual includes all the resources needed to teach and train mediators in the skills of conflict resolution. It explains the conceptual framework of conflict and peacemaking, the stages and steps of the mediation process, and the resources necessary to conduct mediation sessions, including practice through role-playing. The book is divided into three parts: Theory, Process, and Practice. Part I provides a conceptual framework for understanding conflict and mediation. It discusses the sources of conflict, the dynamics of power imbalances, how mediation counteracts them, and familiar styles for managing conflicts. Part II describes the stages of the mediation process. It begins with orientation and preparation for the mediation session before outlining each of the five stages of the mediation process along with a range of communication skills crucial to the success of each stage. Part III focuses on several familiar areas of human experience in which the practice of mediation is common, such as family and domestic mediation, business and organizational mediation, international mediation, and education. These chapters include customary forms and techniques used in resolving conflicts. The final chapter includes materials to manage and conduct mediation role-playing exercises.