ABSTRACT
Many scholars, from a wide variety of disciplines, including law, sociology, politics, and anthropology, have attempted to understand, and analyze, the best means of managing conflicts. This chapter offers a framework for the study of a particular conflict management mechanism; namely, the pacific intervention of a third party. Conflict management by traditional means, such as isolating the parties, or adjudicating their differences, fails to deal with the underlying dimensions of conflict. As conflict, in its many forms, is a ubiquitous feature of human existence, third party intervention, as a general method of conflict management, can take place in interpersonal conflict, industrial conflict, organizational conflict, and even international conflict. The demands placed upon a third party in problem-solving are great; only a panel, or a group of individuals, acting with fairness and with a high degree of engagement, can facilitate attitudinal and behavioral change and move the parties toward conflict resolution.
