Conflict and Paradox in the New American Mediation Movement: Status Quo and Social Transformation

This essay will focus on some of the disharmony in the field of mediation in the United States, particularly from the perspective of those who try to utilize mediation's potential as an instrument of socio-political transformation. The work of these individuals remains a relatively well-kept secret in a time of much publicity about the numerous virtues of mediation as an "alternative" to the legal system. Among the reasons for this secrecy is that, for the time being, the American conflict resolution movement has been substantially overwhelmed by the force and forces of the legal system, professionalization, bureaucracy, and interest-group politics.