The purpose of this contribution is to provide a practitioner's view of the effectiveness of institutions in enacting a peace mediation approach. The European Union is used to provide an illustrative example but this analysis might also be applied to other institutions, possibly in a comparative context. The article suggests an actor-centered approach to assessing mediation effectiveness through seven "virtues:" competence of the actor; political will, norms, and values; resources to induce mediation leverage; legitimacy, presence, and mandate; information and analysis; multitrack competence; and follow-up, sustainability, and accountability. The contribution aims to facilitate the work of scholars and practitioners who work in this field of mediation, as the author has noted a confusion about what the field of peace mediation in terms of practice and inquiry actually is, which results in discussions one could characterize as "ships passing in the night," which advances neither scholarship, nor practice. As such, this article calls for greater attentiveness to a few further dimensions of mediation process with intention of stimulating more research in this field and a fuller understanding of the evolution of peacemaking practice itself.
Peace mediation constitutes a major and natural part of European foreign policy. From the perspective of the European External Action Service (EEAS), this article outlines the foundations of EU peace mediation, the development and genesis of its practice, and contrasts four examples: Belgrade-Pristina, Iran, Georgia and Yemen. Multitrack mediation and its integrated approach provide the specific value added of EU peace mediation. The future challenges in international conflict resolution are now addressed in a new EU concept for Peace Mediation with specific guidelines which point to the need for greater professionalization and a recognition of the EU’s role in this field.
EEAS, Peace mediation, EU competence, Early warning system, Conflict prevention, Belgrade-Pristina, Iran, Georgia, Yemen, NGOS
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.