This book of collected essays by Pamela Aall, Chester Crocker and Fen Hampson situates the study and practice of international mediation and peaceful settlement of disputes within a changing global context.
Featuring both previously published and completely new essays, 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 in a world where great-power rivalries and politics are coming back into play in different corners of the globe, and international and regional organizations are playing different, if not fundamentally altered kinds, of roles (as well as facing different kinds of constraints) in the peaceful settlement of disputes.
The value of the book lies in its focus on issues that challenge both mediators and scholars – mediation in a time of increasing demand for the negotiated settlement of disputes but correspondingly diminishing resources, global polarization and loss of international coherence and leverage, the rise of non-state actors, fragmentation of conflict parties, and changing approaches to peacemaking. The volume aims to situate the practice and study of mediation within this wider social and political context in order to understand better the opportunities and constraints of mediation in today’s world.
This volume will be of much interest to students of international negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution and international relations, as well as practitioners and policymakers.
