Mediation in conflict management and resolution : a case study

Abstract

In order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the process of mediation, it is important to place the purposefulness and the meaning of such a process in context. A detailed discussion of the function, method and outcome of mediation is enhanced by an exploration of the kind of conflict, its roots and development, that may be amenable for this particular means of peaceful settlement. Such conflict, it will be shown, is a function of different, perspectives, the source of which lies in deep-seated nationalistic, ethnic, religious, territorial issues of long standing duration. Any attempts at mediation need to be sensitive to these issues, as it is theses issues themselves that will mould and shape the mediation process. The following study will present mediation, not only as a diplomatic technique of peaceful settlement of disputes, but as a broader interactive relationship between mediation and conflicting parties. Thus an exposition of conflict theory aetiology, management and resolution will be presented with particular emphasis on conflicts in the post-Cold War era. Given the relational aspect of the mediation process, this study will discuss and illustrate through a presentation of a case study, the dynamics of such a relationship, such as the motives behind mediation, possible perceptions of all those concerned, the balance between power and impartiality, as well as the subjective processes that parties experience being constituted of human beings, subject to fears, mistrust, hopes and expectations, as is human nature.