Mediation in a fragmented world: competing approaches and enduring practices

This article assesses change and continuity in international mediation. Using Peace Observatory data, it shows that many core practices have remained strikingly stable: the average number of mediators per round is unchanged, UN involvement remains steady, coercive mediation efforts have not increased, ceasefires occur at similar rates across periods, and leadership dispersion in high-profile, often P5-entangled conflicts is similarly consistent over time. Yet, despite this continuity, mediation today feels different to diplomats and experts. Why? This article advances the argument that the difference lies less in what mediators do than in the ontologies and approaches that frame their work. The once-dominant liberal template has lost prominence, perhaps most visibly reflected in the greater visibility of non-Western mediators advancing sovereigntist or stability-oriented norms, though the involvement of these actors in mediation is nothing new. Mediation now unfolds in a more plural landscape where liberal, coercive, and transactional logics coexist and compete.