Culture binds its members to a range of acceptable norms. During the different stages of a conflict cycle, culture prescribes what precursors will create stress and anxiety in a person, it determines how the individual will assess the conflict, identify a preferred course of action and evaluate the consequences of his or her chosen path. 

Mediation is a change process whose impact can be felt at different levels of society, measured across time and evaluated from different stakeholders' point of view. For this reason mediators should take an expansive view of success, beyond just the signing of an agreement. The indicators described below should be seen as inter-dependent variables that can help demonstrate a measurable impact on the peace process.

Center for Humanitarian Dialogue

Mediation Practice Series N°5 (June 2014)

By Konrad Huber

Modeling collaboration in your process design

Picture: Imam Ashafa and Pastor James

In this adversarial world of power politics, collaborative peace-making processes are emerging as providing surprisingly sustainable outcomes. Unlike power negotiations, participatory mediation is based on the premise that differing worldviews are able to co-exist peacefully and that solutions that meet both sides’ needs can be created by the parties.

From Power to Pure Mediations

Power, in the field of conflict resolution, is defined as the ability to bring about a preferred outcome. Mediation practitioners further differentiate between the use of power to impose an outcome and the use of power to bring out the conflict parties’ preferred outcome.