RATIONALE AND MOTIVES OF MEDIATION

An essential question that must be posed at this juncture concerns the motives for mediation. The process is time consuming, involves risks and uncertainty and may, and often does, result in failure.

As an instrument of diplomacy and foreign policy, mediation has become almost as common as conflict itself. It is carried out daily by such disparate actors as private individ­uals; government officials; religious figures; regional, nongovernmental, and international organizations; ad hoc groupings, or states of all sizes. Each of these mediators brings to the mediation situation its own interests, perceptions, and resources. Each of them may adopt behavior that ranges from the very passive, through the facilitative, to the highly active. The form and character of mediation in a particular international conflict are determined by the context of both the international system and the conflict itself (Bercovitch and Jackson 2001; Kolb 1989a, 1989b; Touval 1985), the issues, the parties involved, and the identity of the mediator. The importance of this reciprocal influence can hardly be overemphasized.

As a form of conflict management, medi­ation is more appropriate in some conflicts than others. Broadly speaking when (a) a conflict is long, drawn out, or complex;

(b) the parties' own conflict-management efforts have reached an impasse; (c) neither party is prepared to countenance further costs or loss of life; and (d) both parties are prepared to cooperate, tacitly or openly, to break their stalemate, mediation may be the preferred choice of conflict management.

These are important yet often neglected questions that touch upon the motivation for mediation, and I believe motivation is fast becoming a crucial theme in the mediation literature. It is worth thinking about this issue in terms of mediator's motivations and parties' motivations (on this, see Zartman and Touval 2007).

Mediator motivation

Different mediators have different motives to intervene in a conflict. When the mediator is an unofficial individual (e.g. Adam Curle in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict in 1967-1970, or President Carter in North Korea in 1994), the motives for initiating mediation may include a desire to (a) be instrumental in changing the course of a long-standing or escalating conflict; (b) gain access to major political leaders and open channels of communication;

(c) put into practice a set of ideas on conflict management; and (d) spread one's own ideas and thus enhance personal stature and professional status. The presence of one or more of these motives (which may be conscious or subconscious) in an opportune situation provides a very strong rationale for an individual to initiate unofficial mediation (on mediators' motives and dilemmas, see Terris and Maoz 2005).

Where a mediator is an official represen­tative of a government or an organization, as is often the case, another set of motives may prevail. Such persons initiate mediation because (a) they have a clear mandate to intervene in disputes (e.g. the Charters of the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of American States each contain an explicit clause mandating that their members seek mediation in regional disputes); (b) they may want to do something about a conflict whose continuance could adversely affect their own political interests;

(c) they may be directly requested by one or both parties to mediate; (d) they may wish to preserve intact a structure of which they are a part (e.g.

Mediators are political actors; they engage in mediation and expend resources because they expect to resolve a conflict and gain something from it (see Greig 2005). For many actors, mediation is a policy instrument through which they can pursue some of their interests without arousing too much opposition (Touval 1992a). The relationship between a mediator and disputants is thus never entirely devoid of political interest. To overlook this aspect is to miss an important element in the dynamics of mediation.

Parties' motivation

Adversaries in conflict have a number of motives for desiring mediation: (a) mediation may actually help them reduce the risks of an escalating conflict and get them closer to a settlement; (b) each party may embrace mediation in the expectation that the mediator will actually nudge or influence the other party; (c) both parties may see mediation as a public expression of their commitment to an international norm of peaceful conflict management; (d) they may want an outsider to take much of the blame should their efforts fail; or (e) they may desire mediation because a mediator can be used to monitor, verify, and guarantee any eventual agreement. One way or another, parties in conflict— and a mediator—have pretty compelling reasons for accepting, initiating, or desiring mediation.

Whether we are studying ethnic, internal, or international conflict, we should resist the tendency to think of mediation as a totally exogenous input, as a unique role or a distinct humanitarian response to conflict in which a well-meaning actor, motivated only by altruism, is keen to resolve a conflict. A mediator, through the very act of mediating, becomes an actor in a conflictual relationship. This relationship involves interests, costs, and potential rewards and exemplifies certain roles and strategies. A mediator’s role, at any one time, is part of this broad interaction. To be effective, mediators’ roles must reflect and be congruent with that interaction. This is how mediation should be seen, studied, and considered in international relations.