Knowledge production on mediation: practice-oriented, but not practice-relevant?

Abstract

Abstract International mediation has become a standard response to armed conflicts, reflected in an expanding research agenda on the topic. This article examines the alleged disconnect between practice and research on mediation. It analyses articles published in highly ranked academic journals and provides insights on who produces knowledge on mediation, how such knowledge is produced and what knowledge is produced. It shows that western male scholars produce the majority of scholarly research on mediation; that positivist approaches dominate these analyses and that most publications theorize about reasons for mediation success. Through this analysis, the article demonstrates that while high-impact mediation research is practice-oriented in that most contributions examine how to make it more effective, its practice-relevance could be strengthened in three ways: by increasing the diversity of perspectives, by adding more interpretive and qualitative approaches and by producing more critical research. The article demonstrates that broader mediation research published in more specialized journals, books and the policy literature contributes to filling these gaps. It therefore nuances the presumed disconnect between mediation research and practice. Overall, the article provides a thorough review of knowledge production on mediation and adds to discussions on diversity and the critical potential of the broader field of peace studies.