The art and science of mediation

Book reviewed in this article:
Jacob Bercovitch , Social Conflicts and Third Parties: Strategies of Conflict Resolution.
Jay Folberg and Alison Taylor , Mediation: A Comprehensive Guide to Resolving Conflicts Without Litigation
Deborah Kolb , The Mediators
Christopher Moore , The Mediation Process     

The jagged line between mediation and couples therapy

Conclusion Mediation of conflict in couples has emerged as a hybrid discipline blending theory and practice from psychology, law and other disciplines. In attempting to orchestrate a successful negotiation, mediators engage the couple in problem solving over concrete issues and workable alternatives. While the healing aspirations of couples therapists transcend the narrower focus of mediation, clinical practice is enriched and informed by facilitating a negotiation that provides valuable data in an economic manner and a rich context for therapeutic intervention. Michael Meltsner is Distinguished University Professor of Law at Northeastern University Law School, 400 Huntington Ave., Boston, Mass. 02115, and a licensed marriage and family therapist.This article is based on a paper presented at the Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School Conference Treating Couples and Their Families, Cambridge, Mass., 26 October 1991. I am grateful for the thoughtful comments of Barbara Hauser and the encouragement of the Couples Team of the Family Center, Somerville, Mass.     

The value of decision analysis in mediation practice

Conclusion To be constructive and effective within the mediation process, a mediator's case evaluation must be carefully derived and reasoned, persuasively articulated, and tactfully delivered. A decision analytic approach allows the mediator to structure and present an intellectually rigorous evaluation while minimizing the risk of perceived loss of neutrality. This approach can enhance the mediator's ability to unlock or redirect participants' emotional and professional investment in litigation and to remove personal and organizational incentives for entrenchment in adversarial and costly disputes.In a particularly complex case, using computer software for decision analysis offers added value by facilitating discussion of the evaluative analysis among additional decision makers who were not at the table. It provides a neutral language and method with which the mediator can probe and challenge the parties' stated positions and tolerance for risk. By helping people focus more clearly and dispassionately on the choices they face, a decision analytic approach and its presentation on computer software should enable them to achieve intelligent settlements.She also specializes in the mediation of legal disputes and the design of curricula in negotiation and mediation practice.     

Grievance mediation

Conclusion In sum, grievance mediation is a highly successful alternative to labor arbitration. It shares with expedited arbitration the capacity to reduce the time and cost of arbitration, and is more likely to produce mutually acceptable outcomes than is a conference procedure in which the neutral retains decisional authority. It is also more likely than either of those procedures to improve the parties' dispute resolution ability and ultimately their entire relationship.To be sure, not all grievances can be successfully resolved through mediation. Still, its advantages are so great, and its costs so low that an effort to resolve grievances at mediation should be a required step preceding arbitration in all collective bargaining contracts. Stephen B. Goldberg is Professor of Law at Northwestern University Law School, Chicago, Ill., 60611. He is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and president of Mediation Research and Education Project, Inc.This article draws in substantial part on material contained in the author's recent book (with William L. Ury and Jeanne M. Brett),Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988).     

The motivation of European Union mediation in civil conflicts

ABSTRACT

Since the EU has expanded its common security focus in the 1990s, this important regional organisation has become the most frequent mediator in low-level civil conflicts worldwide. Under what conditions is the European Union (EU) likely to become involved in mediation in civil conflicts? Is the participation in mediation only explained by the EU's bias toward its near abroad, or is the EU more strategic? Some scholars have suggested that the EU's regional bias for its near abroad is the key explanation for the onset of EU mediation, but we propose that the reality of EU mediation presents a more nuanced story. We posit three explanations based on mediator bias: regional bias, economic bias, and normative bias. Overall, we argue that the EU will mediate in civil conflicts that are in its near abroad, but also where the EU has economic bias and where the EU can exercise its normative power in highly intractable conflicts. We test our hypotheses using statistical analysis of the UCDP low-level civil conflicts data from 1993 to 2004 and Civil War Mediation data from 1974 to 2005. We find strong support for our hypotheses, determining key factors that reveal the EU's strategic onset of mediation.     

Strengthening international mediation

Conclusion Any of these models can be pursued in tandem with any other. There are undoubtedly other options as well so these must be considered illustrative of what might be done.Such an informal approach to improving and extending the practice of international mediation would not preclude the eventual creation of a more formal organizational structure at some point should that be deemed useful. Indeed, it might prepare the way.If it is too soon to know whether or how a more formal service should be designed, perhaps the soundest way to begin is with a loose network offering an array of support services that can grow organically as it proves useful. William L. Ury is Associate Director of the Avoiding Nuclear War Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Director of the Nuclear Negotiation Project, 513 Pound Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. His publications includeBeyond the Hotline: How Crisis Control Can Prevent Nuclear War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985) and, with Roger Fisher,Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Houghton Mifflin, 1981).This column was composed as a think-piece for the Working Session on International Mediation held at the Carter Center of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, May 28–29, 1987, and cosponsored by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Carter Center. For their suggestions and ideas, I am indebted to Brian Urquhart, Harold Saunders, Larry Susskind, Roger Fisher, Cynthia Sampson, Bill Spencer and the members of the Core Group of the International Mediation Project (a faculty seminar sponsored by the Program on Negotiation).