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Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World
Herding Cats offers
o in-depth studies of multiparty mediation
o behind-the-scenes accounts of mediators
o conceptual frameworks
o practicable lessons An illustrious cast of practitioners here describe their personal experiences in working to bring peace in significant conflicts across four continents. In each case, mediation was a multiparty effort, involving a range of actors working simultaneously or sequentially. Herding Cats was developed by the same editors who were responsible for USIP Press's highly successful 1996 publication MANAGING GLOBAL CHAOS and is intended as a follow-on to that book. The editors have framed the volume with discussions that link the practitioner cases to the scholarly literature on mediation, thereby situating the case studies in terms of theory while also drawing on lessons for both scholars and practitioners that can help guide future endeavors.
o in-depth studies of multiparty mediation
o behind-the-scenes accounts of mediators
o conceptual frameworks
o practicable lessons An illustrious cast of practitioners here describe their personal experiences in working to bring peace in significant conflicts across four continents. In each case, mediation was a multiparty effort, involving a range of actors working simultaneously or sequentially. Herding Cats was developed by the same editors who were responsible for USIP Press's highly successful 1996 publication MANAGING GLOBAL CHAOS and is intended as a follow-on to that book. The editors have framed the volume with discussions that link the practitioner cases to the scholarly literature on mediation, thereby situating the case studies in terms of theory while also drawing on lessons for both scholars and practitioners that can help guide future endeavors.
768 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
About the author
Chester A. Crocker
25 books7 followersChester Arthur Crocker (born October 29, 1941) is the James R. Schlesinger professor of strategic studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and serves on the board of its Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Dr. Crocker’s teaching and research focus on international security and conflict management.
From 1981 to 1989, Dr. Crocker served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He developed the strategy and led the diplomacy that produced the treaties signed by Angola, Cuba, and South Africa in New York in December 1988. These agreements resulted in Namibia’s independence (March 1990) and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Namibia and Angola. President Ronald Reagan granted him the President’s Citizens Medal, the country’s second highest civilian award.
Dr. Crocker chaired the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004) and continued to serve as a director of this independent, nonpartisan institution through 2011. He serves on the boards of Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in leaf tobacco and agricultural products; and the Good Governance Group Ltd, a strategic advisory consultancy service. He is a member of the World Bank’s Independent Advisory Board on governance and anti-corruption; is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a leading international NGO that advises leaders facing governance and conflict challenges; and also serves on the international advisory board of International Affairs (London). Dr. Crocker consults as advisor on strategy and negotiation to a number of U.S. and European firms.
Dr. Crocker’s previous professional experience includes service as news editor of Africa Report magazine (1968-69) and staff officer at the National Security Council (1970-72) where he worked on Middle East, Indian Ocean, and African issues. He first joined Georgetown University as director of its Master of Science in Foreign Service program, serving concurrently as associate professor of international relations (1972-80). He served as director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1976-80).
Dr. Crocker lectures and writes on international politics, U.S. foreign policy, conflict management and security issues, and African affairs. He has appeared on numerous television shows, as a dinner or keynote speaker at conferences in the U.S., Europe and Africa, and as a witness in Congressional hearings. His book, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, was published by Norton in 1993. He is the co-author of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases (2004) and co-editor with Fen O. Hampson and Pamela Aall of: Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World (2011), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (2007), Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (2005), Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (2001), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (1999) and Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (1996).
From 1981 to 1989, Dr. Crocker served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He developed the strategy and led the diplomacy that produced the treaties signed by Angola, Cuba, and South Africa in New York in December 1988. These agreements resulted in Namibia’s independence (March 1990) and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Namibia and Angola. President Ronald Reagan granted him the President’s Citizens Medal, the country’s second highest civilian award.
Dr. Crocker chaired the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004) and continued to serve as a director of this independent, nonpartisan institution through 2011. He serves on the boards of Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in leaf tobacco and agricultural products; and the Good Governance Group Ltd, a strategic advisory consultancy service. He is a member of the World Bank’s Independent Advisory Board on governance and anti-corruption; is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a leading international NGO that advises leaders facing governance and conflict challenges; and also serves on the international advisory board of International Affairs (London). Dr. Crocker consults as advisor on strategy and negotiation to a number of U.S. and European firms.
Dr. Crocker’s previous professional experience includes service as news editor of Africa Report magazine (1968-69) and staff officer at the National Security Council (1970-72) where he worked on Middle East, Indian Ocean, and African issues. He first joined Georgetown University as director of its Master of Science in Foreign Service program, serving concurrently as associate professor of international relations (1972-80). He served as director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1976-80).
Dr. Crocker lectures and writes on international politics, U.S. foreign policy, conflict management and security issues, and African affairs. He has appeared on numerous television shows, as a dinner or keynote speaker at conferences in the U.S., Europe and Africa, and as a witness in Congressional hearings. His book, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, was published by Norton in 1993. He is the co-author of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases (2004) and co-editor with Fen O. Hampson and Pamela Aall of: Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World (2011), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (2007), Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (2005), Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (2001), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (1999) and Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (1996).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 14, 2026
Why many cooks if they can spoil the broth?
/////
"The editors look beyond resources and leverage to the status, legitimacy, and broader political ties of the mediators.
The result highlights the often "hidden" value added that private citizens and nongovernmental agencies bring to the mediation process."
/////
Diplo
According to the editors of this book, ‘multiparty mediation’ refers to ‘attempts by many third parties to assist peace negotiations in any given conflict’. Though not a new phenomenon, this certainly has been a prominent feature of international mediation in recent years.
It has also long been clear that multiparty mediation may well bring disadvantages as well as advantages, and that it always produces a need for co-ordination.
The editors are immediately in trouble with their concept of multiparty mediation, which is surely far too elastic.
This version of multiparty mediation is shot through with problems.
Even the notion that it embraces simultaneous assistance to a mediation by two or more parties is not straightforward.
This alone covers three distinct possibilities:
first, unco-ordinated competitive mediations, in which rival brokers seek the sole ‘contract’, as in the early stages of the Sino-American rapprochement at the beginning of the 1970s
secondly, collective mediations, in which responsibility is formally shared between equals (the ‘contact group’ approach)
and thirdly, a mediation charged to one party which is nevertheless supported by a group of ‘friends’.
It is consistent with customary usage to describe the first two as examples of multiparty mediation, though the differences between them are considerable.
But as for the third, which is obviously the mode of mediation that the editors (rightly) prefer, if the ‘cats’ are successfully ‘herded’, to what extent is this still a ‘multiparty’ mediation?
Chester Crocker now modestly refers to the Angola/Namibia mediation that culminated in 1988 as a ‘multiparty mediation’, though, as I recall, he didn’t use this language at the time, when he was US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and had acknowledged leadership of these highly successful negotiations.
......
To call the last kind of mediation a ‘multiparty mediation’ not only obscures the vital difference in influence between the lead state or organization and the other third parties but encourages belief in the very chaos that the editors of this volume are themselves so anxious to eliminate.
He adds that collective mediations, which certainly are multiparty mediations, usually do not work.
The notion that ‘sequential’ mediation is multiparty mediation as well also leaves me uneasy.
This is because there is a world of difference between successive single attempts to mediate a settlement to a conflict that are random and unconnected, and those that consist of deliberate ‘hand-offs’ by one mediator to another.
As for the idea that mediation by a ‘composite actor’ like an intergovernmental organization is by definition multiparty mediation, the trouble with this is that it assumes what has to be proved.
On the negative side, multiparty mediation can cause confusion and thereby invite ‘forum shopping’. In the transitional period between conclusion of an agreement and its subsequent implementation, hand-offs from one third party to another are invariably plagued with misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations.
Finally, where a multiparty mediation is genuinely collective, ‘diluted responsibility’ may lead to ‘buck passing and blame avoidance’.
////////
Minus 1000 Stars
/////
"The editors look beyond resources and leverage to the status, legitimacy, and broader political ties of the mediators.
The result highlights the often "hidden" value added that private citizens and nongovernmental agencies bring to the mediation process."
/////
Diplo
According to the editors of this book, ‘multiparty mediation’ refers to ‘attempts by many third parties to assist peace negotiations in any given conflict’. Though not a new phenomenon, this certainly has been a prominent feature of international mediation in recent years.
It has also long been clear that multiparty mediation may well bring disadvantages as well as advantages, and that it always produces a need for co-ordination.
The editors are immediately in trouble with their concept of multiparty mediation, which is surely far too elastic.
This version of multiparty mediation is shot through with problems.
Even the notion that it embraces simultaneous assistance to a mediation by two or more parties is not straightforward.
This alone covers three distinct possibilities:
first, unco-ordinated competitive mediations, in which rival brokers seek the sole ‘contract’, as in the early stages of the Sino-American rapprochement at the beginning of the 1970s
secondly, collective mediations, in which responsibility is formally shared between equals (the ‘contact group’ approach)
and thirdly, a mediation charged to one party which is nevertheless supported by a group of ‘friends’.
It is consistent with customary usage to describe the first two as examples of multiparty mediation, though the differences between them are considerable.
But as for the third, which is obviously the mode of mediation that the editors (rightly) prefer, if the ‘cats’ are successfully ‘herded’, to what extent is this still a ‘multiparty’ mediation?
Chester Crocker now modestly refers to the Angola/Namibia mediation that culminated in 1988 as a ‘multiparty mediation’, though, as I recall, he didn’t use this language at the time, when he was US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and had acknowledged leadership of these highly successful negotiations.
......
To call the last kind of mediation a ‘multiparty mediation’ not only obscures the vital difference in influence between the lead state or organization and the other third parties but encourages belief in the very chaos that the editors of this volume are themselves so anxious to eliminate.
He adds that collective mediations, which certainly are multiparty mediations, usually do not work.
The notion that ‘sequential’ mediation is multiparty mediation as well also leaves me uneasy.
This is because there is a world of difference between successive single attempts to mediate a settlement to a conflict that are random and unconnected, and those that consist of deliberate ‘hand-offs’ by one mediator to another.
As for the idea that mediation by a ‘composite actor’ like an intergovernmental organization is by definition multiparty mediation, the trouble with this is that it assumes what has to be proved.
On the negative side, multiparty mediation can cause confusion and thereby invite ‘forum shopping’. In the transitional period between conclusion of an agreement and its subsequent implementation, hand-offs from one third party to another are invariably plagued with misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations.
Finally, where a multiparty mediation is genuinely collective, ‘diluted responsibility’ may lead to ‘buck passing and blame avoidance’.
////////
Minus 1000 Stars
January 16, 2015
Great book on the complexities of peace keeping around the world
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews