![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The normative framework in mediation processes is growing. Mediators are increasingly expected by their mandate-givers to incorporate liberal norms such as inclusivity into their overall strategy. However, in the wake of the terrorist attacks that took place on 11 September 2001, and the policy shifts that accompanied the “Global War on Terror”, mediators find themselves simultaneously pressured to design mediation processes actively excluding armed groups proscribed as terrorists and consequently incorporating this illiberal norm of “exclusivity”, barring proscribed groups’ access to negotiations. This article asks what consequences this development has on the normative agency of mediators, based on if and how they incorporate proscribed armed groups into their mediation strategies. It argues that the dichotomy between liberal and illiberal norms has important consequences on a mediator’s normative agency. First, the dichotomy constrains mediators to a single normative standard, rendering only liberal and illiberal views possible. Second, the assumption that liberal norms are “good” and illiberal norms are “bad” engenders a double dichotomy that greatly constrains a mediator’s normative agency. Third, these constraints on a mediator engender new mediation practices such as outsourcing and risk-sharing in an attempt to salvage normative agency. The article contributes to scholarship on norms, terrorism and mediation through providing a more nuanced view of normative parameters in mediation practice.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The author would like to thank Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, Daniel Finnbogason, David Lanz, Alexandre Raffoul and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the text. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. “Mediators” are defined as third-party actors who assist two or more parties, with their consent, to prevent, manage or resolve a conflict by helping them develop mutually acceptable agreements (United Nations Citation2012).
2. The norm of inclusivity is defined in the UN Guidance for Effective Mediation as: “the extent and manner in which the views and needs of the conflict parties and other stakeholders are represented and integrated into the process and outcome of a mediation effort” (United Nations Citation2012).
3. The author understands norms as “collective expectations for the proper behaviour of actors with a given identity” (Katzenstein Citation1996, 5). The identity in question is that of a mediator.
4. This concept is based on Finnemore and Sikkink’s “life cycle” model of norm diffusion. “Norm entrepreneurs” are defined as “actors who attempt to convince a critical mass of [actors] to embrace new norms” (Finnemore and Sikkink Citation1998, 895).
5. Proscription regimes are viewed as illiberal in conflict transformation and peace-building scholarship and practices as well. However, this article focuses specifically on peace mediation.
6. This process–content distinction is cited widely in the mediation literature. The ownership of the parties of the content of peace agreements raises important questions about how international norms diffuse into final peace agreement texts. A mediator’s role in designing agenda items and supporting single-text draft processes between and among negotiating parties may be an avenue for content-based norms diffusion. This falls slightly outside the scope of this article but remains a topic of growing scholarly interest (see Hellmüller, Palmiano Federer, and Zeller Citation2015; Hellmüller, Palmiano Federer, and Pring Citation2017; Bell and O'Rourke Citation2010; Kastner Citation2015).
7. This phrase is said to have first been used by American negotiator Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. It is premised on the notion that ambiguously worded text can advance the interests of conflict parties in a negotiation process.
8. There are numerous policy documents promoting the inclusivity norm in peace-building. See for example: The World Bank. 2011. World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank; Rocha Menocal, Alina. 2015. “Inclusive political settlements: evidence, gaps, and challenges of institutional transformation. Birmingham, UK: International Development Department, University of Birmingham; OCED-DAC’s New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States; and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
9. The literature on spoilers and terrorism overlap as the war on terror has prompted studies on terrorist violence that occurs in the context of armed conflict or peace processes (see Kydd and Walter Citation2002).
10. It is important to note that different proscription regimes delineate between engaging with groups and individuals.
11. How IHL is incorporated into domestic law is outside the scope of this article, but is important to consider when looking at key mediation actors such as Norway and Switzerland.
12. Some of these complexities include the high number of armed groups active in a given conflict context, conflicts that are internationalised through the geopolitics of the region and the increasing number of mediation actors due to the professionalisation of the field.
13. Politically sensitive actors such as these are not necessarily proscribed as terrorists.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Julia Palmiano Federer
Julia Palmiano Federer is a PhD Candidate at the University of Basel. Her doctoral research analyses the role of mediators in norm diffusion, specifically in the context of the peace process in Myanmar. She has also published policy papers on international peace mediation, gender, and Myanmar politics. Julia works as a Program Officer in the Mediation program at Swisspeace, where she is conducting her doctoral research in the framework of the Swiss National Science Foundation funded project, “Are mediators norm entrepreneurs?” She holds an MA in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.