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Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution
In this thought-provoking, passionately written book, Bernard Mayer―an internationally acclaimed leader in the field―dares practitioners to ask the hard questions about alternative dispute resolution. What’s wrong with conflict resolution? Why aren’t more individuals and organizations using conflict resolution when they have a problem? Why doesn’t the public know more about it? What are the limits of conflict resolution? When does conflict resolution work and when does it not? Offering a committed practitioner’s critique of the profession of mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution, Beyond Neutrality focuses on the current crisis in the field of conflict resolution and offers a pragmatic response.
- GenresNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 9, 2019
One of my favorite quotes I've read thus far in my literary adventure through peacemaking is is this book: "Mediators, facilitators, and arbitrators don't resolve disputes. They don't change the nature of a conflict. They don't escalate or deescalate disputes. Conflict resolvers instead provide a service or assistance to the people who do those things-- who determine the direction of a dispute and have the challenge of engaging productively: the disputants themselves. Our role and our goal should be to help disputants engage productively."
November 22, 2018
I read this book for school and took extensive notes on it, I also met the author while doing a residency as part of my Graduate school program in Conflict Resolution and Negotiation too.
I found this book effective primarily, in doing a wonderful job at expanding our awareness and potential of our field. He basically wants to have us take our focus out of the last phase of a conflict and move us into every phase of the conflict. He does a good job arguing for why we as a field are stagnant and what the demand/needs are of actual people in conflict. The author does not just argue for what we can do but shows more importantly how we can do it.
My main concern, which I get maybe his point (hence the title of the book) is that we'll inevitably get pulled into the conflict that has us forego our 3rd Party status [although he does argue we can keep it]. My concern again though, is that the field will become politicized, especially in our times and I wonder if the integrity of the field will be protected as we enter into the fray with our own particular pet projects. After all the author did make clear that this field walks a tension between Social Control and Social Change, with so many anti-traditional sentiments will this field like many other social fields end up simply co-opted to a political agenda?
Fortunately, the field is relatively young and with this author's ideas now written down it shows that this field is actually entering into a more entrepreneurial phase filled with experimentation. Therefore, I am optimistic that the field can become a force for good just as much as it may be used for a force for ill.
I found this book effective primarily, in doing a wonderful job at expanding our awareness and potential of our field. He basically wants to have us take our focus out of the last phase of a conflict and move us into every phase of the conflict. He does a good job arguing for why we as a field are stagnant and what the demand/needs are of actual people in conflict. The author does not just argue for what we can do but shows more importantly how we can do it.
My main concern, which I get maybe his point (hence the title of the book) is that we'll inevitably get pulled into the conflict that has us forego our 3rd Party status [although he does argue we can keep it]. My concern again though, is that the field will become politicized, especially in our times and I wonder if the integrity of the field will be protected as we enter into the fray with our own particular pet projects. After all the author did make clear that this field walks a tension between Social Control and Social Change, with so many anti-traditional sentiments will this field like many other social fields end up simply co-opted to a political agenda?
Fortunately, the field is relatively young and with this author's ideas now written down it shows that this field is actually entering into a more entrepreneurial phase filled with experimentation. Therefore, I am optimistic that the field can become a force for good just as much as it may be used for a force for ill.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews