Introduction

This chapter comments on the changes the field of peace mediation experienced under the impact of the last decade's professionalization and partial regulation. These processes, so closely intertwined, deeply affect the practice of peace mediation today: its styles and approaches, its conceptual understanding, the self-perception of and interaction between actors, and the resulting shape of roles, processes and agreements. However, it is still unclear whether and how professionalization and regulation affect the outcomes of mediated negotiations.

The chapter examines ways in which the major paradigm shift from mediation's traditional reliance on individualized, non-transferable skills to nuanced mediation expertise, clustered in support structures and distinct organizational profiles, has changed – or has not yet managed to change – the field of peace mediation. We argue that professionalization tested the peace mediation field and its ability to cooperatively improve its own professional basis in an unintended, fundamental way. Even if this litmus test is not yet finished, the chapter proposes a model to ‘sort out’ the status quo in this process and to help readjust mediation as a properly functioning instrument for addressing political conflict. The chapter uses the other contributions to this volume as a basis and as a quasi-representative mirror of a decade of underlying knowledge on professionalizing peace mediation.

A Defined Profession Lacking a Defined Reference Frame

While peace mediation is now widely recognized as a professionalized activity carried out by experts (see Kastner, in Chapter 2, this volume) within a defined normative arena, there is still no ‘hard’ empirical evidence demonstrating whether and how this professional expertise and the underlying normative system(s) lead to more satisfying outcomes and graspable changes towards peace. In other words, nobody knows whether recent adjustments actually have improved the quality of peace mediation work. For a long time, there seemed to be a tacit agreement in the community to either ignore this middle-sized elephant in the room or argue it away. Now that the field has become better acquainted with its own merits and flaws, the issue is becoming the focus of a new kind of self-reflective curiosity.

From a scientific perspective on professionalization, regulation and impact evaluation, the problem can be explained relatively easily.