Long-term success in mediation

This article reports the results of a study of the antecedents of long-term success in community mediation. Seventy-three mediation sessions were recorded and content analyzed. The participants were interviewed at two points: immediately after mediation and 4 to 8 months later. No relationship was found between the quality of the agreements—i.e., the extent to which they solved immediate problems- and long-term success as measured by compliance, improved relations between the parties, and the absence of new problems. On the other hand, joint problem solving by the disputants was related to complainant perceptions of improved relations with the other party. Also respondent perceptions that the mediation had been fair and that all the problems had come out were related to all aspects of long-term success in the eyes of the complainant. The latter results support a procedural justice analysis of mediation and underline the importance of mediator attention to the respondent.     

THE CHURCH REPORT'S ANALYSIS OF VERTICAL AND CONGLOMERATE MERGERS: A REPLY TO COOPER, FROEB, O'BRIEN, AND VITA

I respond to concerns raised by James Cooper, Luke Froeb, DanO'Brien, and Michael Vita regarding the analysis of verticaland conglomerate mergers contained in my report to the EuropeanCommission. I address their arguments that the raising rivals'costs literature does not support an aggressive stance on verticalmergers; that market power is a necessary, but not a sufficient,condition for a non-horizontal merger to raise antitrust concerns;and that efficiencies intrinsic to a non-horizontal merger shouldbe treated in the second step of the proposed structured ruleof reason framework.     

Book reviews

Ash Amin and John Tomaney (eds), Behind the Myth of European Union: Prospects for Cohesion (Routledge, London, 1995), 334 pp., ISBN 0–415–13078–6 (pb)

Stephen Gundle and Simon Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic: Front the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi (Routledge, London, 1996), 334 pp., ISBN 0–415–12161–2 (hb), 0–415–12162 (pb)

Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (I. B. Tauris, London, 1996), 965 pp., ISBN 1–85043–879‐X

Geoff Mulgan, Connexity: How to Live in a Connected World (Chatto & Windus, London, 1997), 280 pp., ISBN 0–7011–6396–8