M

Summary

Mediation

In policy studies, mediation refers to two distinct processes. Lúcio and Neves (2010) describe the first as being where two or more parties with unaligned positions engage with one another through a further, dispassionate and neutral participant (a mediator) in order to reach a mutually agreeable policy position. This position cannot be one that is predetermined by the mediator. For this aim to be realised, the mediator must be acceptable to the other parties and must typically not occupy a position of authority in relation to the negotiators or wield power within the mediation process. This process must be confidential and based on open-minded negotiation rather than on confrontation, as well as aim to anticipate future potential conflicts. Importantly, decisions are reached by the negotiators rather than the mediator, whose role is to facilitate their communication. The impetus to align diverging interests or goals may come from within or beyond the grouping (not including the mediator), but participation in all cases must be voluntary. This sense of mediation has applications beyond policy formation, and may be used to reconcile relationships between, for instance, institutions, nations, corporations or factions; between individuals within them, or between any of those former and their communities (Lúcio and Neves, 2010).

While mediation's earliest and best-studied examples are located in conflict studies, particularly regarding labour disputes, Lúcio and Neves (2010) identify strong possibilities for mediation ‘as social and educational work’ (p 486). Their justification lies in increasingly robust evidence that mediation may function as ‘a communicative action’ (Lúcio and Neves, 2010, p 486) whose deployment may strengthen and develop, rather than repair, relationships between subjects who may be conceived as proactive agents of social transformation. In this way, Lúcio and Neves (2010) argue that mediation as social and educational work aims to problematise and complexify, and through that to construct new social relations in a spirit of dialogue and sharing.

Mediation may be employed more or less formally and at different points in the policy process. Exemplifying the more formal end of the spectrum, the US has statutes that determine the use of specific conventions for public policy mediation for the creation and revision of regulations (Laws and Forester, 2007).