Parent (Previous) Guide Folders
Constructive Conflict Guide > Civic Knowledge and Skills That We Can Use to Help Ourselves and Our Society More Constructively Handle Intractable Conflict > Stripping Away "Overlay" Problems That Make Conflicts Appear More Intractable Than They Really Are > Overview of Third-Party Approaches
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BI Article
Introducing a Discussion with Bernie Mayer and Jackie Font Guzman about Neutrality and Related Matters
Introduction to what we hope will become a lengthy discussion about the nature of the challenges facing America and the role conflict resolution experts can and should play in addessing those challenges.
BI Article
Updating Our Impartiality Discussions - Part 1
An update on our 2-year old discussion of impartiality, adding to it Martin Carcasson's notion of "principled impartiality" (and its relationship with information quality and "small-d" democracy).
BI Article
Updating Our Impartiality Discussions - Part 2
In part 2 of this 2-part series, we apply Martin Carcasson's notion of "principled impartiality" to the Israel/Gaza/Hezbollah/Iran war, and to the political conflict in the United States.
BI Article
Summary of "The Case for Principled Impartiality in a Hyper-Partisan World"
A summary of an article published in the National Civic Review which explains that impartiality still makes sense, and is increasinly needed in our fraught hyper-polarized communication environment.
BI Article
The Reflexive Mediator
A summary of Jay Rothman's 2014 Negotiation Journal article in which Jay suggests mediators cannot be neutral, but they can be reflexive and use "disciplined bias" to reach resolution.
BI Article
Neutrality, Omni-Partiality, and the Evolution of Political Conflict
Chapter 7 from Ken Cloke's new book, explaining how mediators should be "omni-partial," not neutral.
BI Article
Canaries, Constructive Advocates, and Intermediaries
A comparison of three conflict roles, all of which are needed to successfully confront challenging and complex social problems and issues.
BI Article
Insider-Partial Mediation
Insider-partial mediation is mediation that is done by a person involved in the conflict instead of a neutral outsider. Though uncommon in North America, some argue that insider-partial mediators are better in non-Western contexts.
BI Article
Carol Pauli's "The 'End' of Neutrality: Tumultuous Times Require a Deeper Value"
Pauli asserts that neutrality is an "unsatisfying value" for both journalists and mediators in our current conflicted times, and might be better replaced with a fundamental reliance on human dignity of every person.
News and Opinion
Vanderbilt's Bold Stand for 'Neutrality'
An update on Vanderbilt's neutrality policy and a vision for progressively uncovering the truth through an examination of available evidence and an exchange of views about the meaning of that evidence.