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TAMING INTRACTABLE CONFLICTS
Mediation in the Hardest Cases

Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall

(click for larger cover)

$35.00 (Hardback)
978-1-929223-56-5

$14.95 $12.00 (Paperback)
978-1-929223-55-8

USIP Press Books
August 2004
224 pp. , 6" x 9"

Some conflicts seem to defy resolution. Marked by longevity, recurrent violence, and militant agendas, these intractable conflicts refuse to be settled either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. The longer they fester, the stronger the international community's inclination to lose heart and to turn away. But, explain the authors of this provocative volume, effective mediation in intractable conflicts is possible—if the mediator knows what to do and when to do it.

Written from the mediator's point of view, Taming Intractable Conflicts lays out the steps involved in tackling the most stubborn of conflicts. It first puts mediation in a larger context, exploring why mediators choose or decline to become involved, what happens when they get involved for the wrong reasons, and the impact of the mediator's institutional and political environment. It then discusses best mediation tradecraft at different stages: at the beginning of the engagement, when the going gets very rough, during the settlement negotiations, and in the post-settlement implementation stage.

Forceful, concise, and highly readable, Taming Intractable Conflicts serves not only as a hands–on guide for would-be mediators but also as a powerful argument for students of conflict management that intractable conflicts are not beyond the reach of mediation.

Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University where his teaching and research focus on conflict management and regional security issues. He served as chairman of the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004), and continues as a member of its board. From 1981-1989, he was U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. As such, he was the principal diplomatic architect and mediator in the prolonged negotiations among Angola, Cuba, and South Africa that led to Namibia’s transition to independence, and to the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. He serves on the boards of ASA Ltd., a NYSE-listed, closed-end fund focused on gold mining; Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in tobacco, agricultural and lumber products; Good Governance Group Ltd; and First Africa Holdings Ltd. He serves on the advisory board of the National Defense University in Washington. Dr. Crocker is the author of High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, co-author (with Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall) of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases, and coeditor of Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict; Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict; and Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World.

Fen Osler Hampsonis professor of international affairs and director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Hampson was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in 1993-94. He is chair of the Human Security Track of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, a joint initiative of the governments of Finland and Tanzania.

Pamela R. Aall is the Institute's vice president for domestic programs, Education and Training Center. Before joining the Institute in 1993, she was a consultant to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and to the Institute of International Education. She held a number of positions at the Rockefeller Foundation. She has also worked for the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam and Brussels), the International Council for Educational Development (New York), and the New York Botanical Garden.
She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from Columbia University and attended the London School of Economics, conducting research on political and economic integration in Scandinavia and Europe.

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