Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
William Ury explains how outsiders can facilitate the development and coordination of many different third-sider roles. This he calls "meta mediation."
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Meta Mediation
William Ury
Director of the Global Negotiation Project, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School
So he [Nelson Mandela] very definitely is a model third sider and again he is an insider and he was helped by the outsiders and that's what we need the job of the mediator and people with mediation talent vis a vis the third side is often to play one of the roles that need to be played, one of the instruments that need to be played, but also we increasingly need to play the role of what I call the "meta-mediator," which is to use your skills of facilitation and bring different people together to orchestrate or help orchestrate or bring together the different voices of the third side, from within the society, from outside the society, to bring the police, the military, the church people, the women's groups, the business - to bring all the different elements of society that really will make up bring them into dialogue with each other in order to make a powerful third side.
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. -- Steven King
Featured Links Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict National Peace Corps Association
Other Resources from Beyond Intractability Preventive Diplomacy and International Violence Prevention "The concept and practice of violence prevention have evolved from being focused almost exclusively on the short-term interventions of preventive diplomacy, to a new, more comprehensive approach that can be defined as structural prevention and includes long-term initiatives targeting the root causes of conflict."
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Philip J. Noel-Baker Anti-war activist, instrumental figure in the formation of the League of Nations and the United Nations, and 1959 Nobel Peace Laureate
The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors c/o Conflict Information Consortium(Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309 Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact
