ABSTRACT
All mediators engage in dispute analysis in the first stages of the mediation process as they establish the issues of the case, the emotional context, and the relationship of the parties. Looked at from a more academic position, dispute analysis involves more than these points, also including attention to the structural background in which the conflict is occurring. In this chapter I shall look at both this wide sense of dispute analysis, and also the narrower sense with which mediators are concerned. My aim is to describe the typical characteristics of neighbour disputes, using an analytical framework developed by Paul Wehr.1 I look at the history, context, parties, issues and dynamics of conflict, analysing each of these in the context of neighbour disputes. This then serves to underpin the discussion in the next chapter, about the process undertaken by the local mediation service, of selecting disputes for mediation.
