Teaching Mediation as Reflective Practice

This article contributes to a growing body of research about how to effectively teach mediation by considering how best to use role-plays in the mediation classroom to encourage reflective practice with a particular emphasis on the role of the teacher as a facilitator of reflective learning. The author suggests that the process of teaching mediation as reflective practice starts with teaching as reflective practice and emphasizes the importance of teachers' critical self-reflection. The article provides some examples of how teachers can encourage students to engage in reflective learning and develop their skills as reflective practitioners for their continued professional development.     

Toward a New Paradigm for International Petroleum Trade

Petroleum is not just a commodity but a vital strategic asset with an impact on almost all aspects of the global economy. Although petroleum products are widely used all over the world, petroleum reserves, production and refineries are dominated by a handful of countries.     

Rethinking Diplomatic and Development Outcomes through Sport: Toward a Participatory Paradigm of Multi-Stakeholder Diplomacy

Abstract

Sport diplomacy provides a challenging example of how diplomatic practice is changing in light of a proliferation of actors, agendas, and modes of communication. This context has inspired greater interest in techniques for managing the participation of others in the pursuit of desired outcomes, such as debates surrounding multi-stakeholder diplomacy, public diplomacy, and soft power. However, these debates often derive from an instrumentalist perspective of exerting influence and securing outcomes. Sport, on the other hand, involves sites and practices capable of supporting communities in the identification of their own goals, and of supporting the development of strategies and skills that can achieve those goals. Its participatory qualities challenge instrumentalist approaches to diplomatic objective setting, and potentially reveal some of the ways in which diplomacy can be more diffuse and inclusive. This article uses the example of sport diplomacy to question the basis for instrumentalist diplomatic objective setting and to explore the theoretical basis for participatory models of multi-stakeholder diplomacy.     

Mediation Research: A Current Review

In this article, we review the mediation literature from the past decade, utilizing a cybernetic mediation paradigm to organize the material. In this paradigm, we note that the type of conflict, country, culture, and mediation institutions affect the mediation process. Within this process, the mediator and disputants interact with each other, attempting to reach their own goals. This interaction produces outcomes for the disputants, the mediators, and other parties. The literature — organized using this paradigm — indicates that mediation is frequently practiced in many venues; the literature also provides an exhaustive list of mediation goals, describes many mediation strategies, and reports manifold mediation outcomes. Unfortunately, the number of studies examining the relative effectiveness of specific strategies (e.g., pressing, relational, and analytic) seems insufficient. Few studies have used control groups or reported observations of mediator and disputants' behavior in actual mediations.     

Toward a Program-Based ADR Research Agenda

Program evaluation research is often too narrowly focused to build theoryabout dispute resolution while theory-driven ADR research is frequentlytoo far removed from programmatic realities to inform practice. To developan ADR evaluation research agenda that connects theory and practice, weneed to consider: making ADR context a central focus of research; undertakinga fuller account of the processes and the work of third parties inrelation to what skills and orientations parties bring with them to ADR asnegotiators; widening our view of ADR impact or result; and reexaminingwhat research methods are best for studying ADR programs. By shiftingour perspectives, placing negotiating parties closer to the center of ourstudy of ADR, and grounding research in the contexts that matter to policy-makersand practitioners, we could significantly advance research onthird-party intervention.     

Insight Mediation: A Learning-Centered Mediation Model

Insight mediation is the name we have given to the model of mediation that is taught and practiced at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The name has evolved from our efforts to situate the model in relation to the transformative and narrative styles of mediation. Drawing upon the work of Canadian philosopher Bernard Lonergan and his theory of insight, mediators practicing this model seek direct and inverse insights into what the conflict means to each party by discovering what each party cares about and how that threatens the other party. Insights shift attitudes and create space for collective action. The authors argue that coming to recognize the theoretical underpinnings of our practice helps us become better practitioners.     

Mediation in Italy: Exploring the Contradictions

This article sets Italy in the context of three primary approaches to promoting mediation use in Europe: cultural, pragmatic, and legalistic. Despite the fact that Italy could be considered a "front-runner" in the latter category, the actual number of cases going to mediation to date has remained low. Drawing on both data from a recent CPR European Committee survey and aspects of the broader Italian legal and social context, this article explores reasons for this apparent contradiction and concludes by suggesting general principles that can be extrapolated from the Italian experience.     

Mediation and Culture: The Example of the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition

The International Commercial Mediation Competition is organized by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, which held the event for the eighth time in February 2013. As the competition has grown, participation has become more and more diverse and thus mediation and negotiation have become more and more cross‐cultural. This led the ICC to invite external research on culture at the competition in February 2011. In this article, I discuss this student competition, the external research project question, and the culture of the competition. I also identify some of the further cultural issues raised by referring to relevant research on conflict and mediation across cultures, and conclude with some thoughts on how better to conceptualize the field of cross‐cultural mediation in terms of a systems approach.     

The Italian Mediation Explosion: Lessons in Realpolitik

Between the time that the first modern Italian mediation statutes were issued in 1993 and March 2011, when mandatory mediation procedures under Italian Legislative Decree 28/2010 went into effect, an interesting paradox emerged in Italian mediation: mediation usage was virtually nonexistent despite the high success rates of mediated cases. Clearly, the mere availability of mediation was not sufficient to attract disputants away from the courts, even though the Italian court backlog skyrocketed to 5.4 million cases during this period. Decree 28/2010 was issued by the Italian government to address this paradox through a mandatory mediation requirement, but the law has faced significant opposition from some members of the Italian bar in the form of public strikes and legal challenges. Legislators have responded to this dissent with reactionary amendments to “cure” problems in the regulatory structure, even though there has also been significant positive attention paid to the Italian mediation model at the European level. As the opposition to Decree 28/2010 now appears to be diminishing and recent data indicate that mandatory mediation is achieving its objectives (to the tune of tens of thousands of mediated cases since March 2011), two lessons in realpolitik emerge for mediation proponents. First, nothing less than compulsion can rapidly increase mediation use. Second, the legislator who compels mediation without openly engaging the opposition is not mediation savvy, for even in compelling a policy choice, one should be respectful and mindful of the opponent's position, if for no other reason than to minimize his or her opposition to the final result.     

Mediation Ethics: A Grounded Approach

Using insights drawn from mediation practice, social justice scholarship, and debates on ethical thinking in other professional fields, the authors argue that prevailing ethical codes for mediators in the United States stunt the development of ethical thinking in the field. Current codes and even their critiques take a "top-down" approach that proceeds from the perspective of the mediator and gives primacy to abstract principles rather than to the particulars and contexts of disputes. This approach ignores a much richer practice on the ground, depends on an artificial division of procedural and substantive justice, and constricts the scope of ethical questions raised, inhibiting effective systemic solutions. The authors argue for ethics grounded in the context of particular substantive areas, which do not focus on the mediator alone and which remain open to a wider set of social justice considerations.     

Improvisation and Mediation: Balancing Acts

Improvisation can be an important element of mediation practice, and there are several ways in which mediation practice correlates to improvisational performance. In this article, two mediation experts and two skilled jazz musicians explore the improvisational aspects of mediation. Two central themes emerge: (1) mediators often use improvisational techniques, and (2) by being improvisational, mediators can create environments that would encourage the parties themselves to be improvisational. We argue that practitioners can enhance their effectiveness as mediators by mastering improvisational skills.     

Toward a negotiated order

Book reviews in this article:
Barbara Gray . Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems.
Louise Nieuwmeijer . Negotiation: Methodology and Training.
Linda R. Singer . Settling Disputes: Conflict Resolution in Business, Families, and the Legal System.     

Globalization: An Ascendant Paradigm?

International Studies is on the cusp of a debate between para-keepers , observers who are steadfast about maintaining the prevailing paradigms and deny that globalization offers a fresh way of thinking about the world, and para-makers , who bring into question what they regard as outmoded categories and claim to have shifted to an innovatory paradigm. This distinction is a heuristic that allows for various gradations and dynamic interactions between the keepers and the makers. It helps to identify anomalies in and discomfort with International Studies. Partly as a response to these problems, globalization studies has evolved and may be tentatively delimited by a distinct set of characteristics. But, in the near term, there is no looming Kuhnian crisis in the sense of an impending overthrow that would quickly sweep away reigning paradigms. Given that systematic research on globalization is only slightly more than a decade in the making, it is most likely that International Studies has entered an interregnum between the old and the new. At this time, as a paradigm, globalization is more of a potential than a worked-out framework. It may be best understood as a proto-paradigm.     

International Politics： A Desirable Paradigm

This article first traces the origin of four concepts International Politics (IP), International Relations (IR), World Politics (WP) and Global Politics (GP) and discusses the similarities among these four paradigms. It then analyses their application both at home and abroad. Finally, it argues for the desirability of selecting the concept of IP in academic training, thus facilitating practical application of concepts. It asserts that this will not only enhance academic discussion about IP among different Chinese schools of thought, but also help blazing new ideas.     

Assessing Empowerment in Divorce Mediation

The empowerment of disputants is a fundamental concern of mediation research, but empowerment is difficult to measure. This study operationally defines empowerment in a divorce case as an agreed-upon modification of the Texas Standard Possession Order in the direction of granting more time with the child to the noncustodial parent. Using a cross-case analysis of mediated and nonmediated divorce cases, this study found that couples that participated in mediation were empowered, not disempowered, in the construction of their visitation arrangements. Implications for measuring empowerment, litigation, and legislative policy are discussed.