(excerpt)

Crocker, Chester A., Fen Olser Hampson, and Pamela Aall. eds. Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World. United States Institute of Peace: Washington D.C., 1999, pg. 693-4.

To purchase the full document from USIP click here.

As we recognized at the beginning of this chapter, multiparty mediation has become part of the architecture of the response to violent conflict that, under the right circumstances, can bring the mix of persuasion, leverage, and incentive (or disincentive) structure necessary to keep a peace process on track. Multiparty mediation in which institutions compete with each other, fail to communicate, or use the opportunity to avoid taking responsibility can also throw a peace process off track. In trying to identify what makes the difference between an effective multiparty mediation and an ineffective one, we have identified out of the preceding case studies three factors that have not received much attention in either scholarly or practitioner literature: institutional and mediator "readiness," the context of the personal relationship between the mediator and the parties to the conflict, and the context of the larger policy that the mediation supports.

What does this mean for the institutions and individuals who embark on a third-party peacemaking effort? In simple terms, mediating entities have to assess in realistic terms not only their good intentions and available resources, but also their ability to activate those resources and to reach-meaning to engage the warring parties. It also means that they must be sentient of the consequences of their actions, seeing how the success or failure of the mediation affects not only the particular phase of the conflict that they are involved in, but all succeeding phases. Individual mediators need to be supported by their institutions; their institutions need to be supported by the other third-party institutions with an interest in the mediation effort. And both individuals and institutions need to recognize that mediation in a multiparty setting requires leadership of a very different nature than was necessary in preceding decades and centuries. In acknowledging that it may take more than one mediator to handle a dispute and that some mediators may have a comparative advantage over others in carrying out various kinds of mediation tasks, depending on the level, intensity, and duration of violence, we are also cognizant of the very real practical and operational challenges for institutions and for individuals who are associated with multiparty mediated interventions.