ABSTRACT
Decision-making by a privately appointed arbitrator, mediation, or the exclusion of third-party help altogether might all be contemplated. Despite the growth of a very large literature on negotiation, contributed to by a number of disciplines, mediation has received surprisingly little attention, often being treated as a minor variant of bilateral negotiation. rocesses of mediation, looked at cross-culturally, differ very greatly in their degree of formality, the number of rules, the rigidity of the framework, imposed upon the disputants. The retrieval of decision-making power by the disputants is consistent with advisory and mediatory help. The chapter discusses the four models of dispute approach: bilateral negotiation; supported negotiation; mediation and umpiring. Mediatory forms of intervention have received rather less attention in the social sciences than might have been expected considering the extent to which they are found in areas outside the family context.
