Strategies and Bias in International Mediation
| Author | Siniša Vuković |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836710396848 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Review Essay |
Review Essay
Cooperation and Conflict
46(1) 113–119
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836710396848
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Strategies and Bias in
International Mediation
Siniša Vukovic´
Introduction
In an international system deprived of central authority, mediation has often been advo-
cated as the most suitable way of third-party conflict management. Initially, the study of
international mediation relied mostly on insights derived from the analyses of collective
bargaining in economics (Zartman, 2008). Not surprisingly, drawing parallels from
mediation activities in labour–management disputes, scholars assumed an axiomatic
stand toward the role of a mediator as a neutral and impartial third party stripped of any
self-interest or leverage in the conflict. As such, mediation was equated with facilitation,
and the mediator’s role was reduced to a mere channel through which complex commu-
nication between disputants could be alleviated. Evidently, the field suffered from a
monocausal approach to international mediation.
This simplistic and naïve treatment persisted for several decades (in some cases even
to this day), but was gradually challenged. As the number of mediation activities
increased in international relations, scholars started to unveil complex dynamics behind
mediation activities, pointing out the interplay of several factors that might influence the
outcome. As early as in 1975, Touval pointed out that a biased mediator was not neces-
sarily a liability to the process but potentially an advantage if it was able to move the
party toward which it was biased into reaching a negotiated solution. With bias no longer
a taboo, scholars began analysing mediation strategies characterized by third-party’s
self-interest in getting involved and also by a specific leverage that could be used by a
mediator to deliver a solution to the dispute. Soon the notions of ‘manipulative’ and
‘directive’ mediator were introduced (Touval and Zartman, 1985; Bercovitch et al.,
1991). By analysing these and other factors, mediators were no longer just simple
bystanders facilitating the peace talks; they were rather an active party in the complex
dynamics of peace talks whose particular characteristics became instrumental for the
outcome of mediation.
Contemporary scholarship has almost unanimously accepted a multicausal approach
in order to explain mediation. This way mediator’s characteristics (impartiality, interests
Corresponding author:
Siniša Vukovic´, Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University,
Wassenaarseweg 52, PO Box 9555, 2333 AK Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands.
[email: sumosika@yahoo.com and vukovics@fsw.leidenuniv.nl]
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