Does conflict mediation research keep track with cultural theory?

Abstract

This article provides a theory-based qualitative content analysis and a diachronic perspective on how conflict management research with a particular consideration of conflict mediation as an informal management tool has conceived the influence of culture on its field of practice. Results show that authors tend to choose notions of culture for their analysis that confirm their previous assumptions on the setting. Consequently, the pre-existing notions of intercultural mediation are rarely questioned or analyzed with a focus on their limitations. It may be followed that articles over time have been designed in a more and more multifaceted way considering how they conceive culture. Regardless of the method applied, there is a strong preference for mediators’ actions versus reserved and cultural relativist attitudes that may stem from intercultural research. This growing action orientation can be seen in stark contrast to the simultaneous increase in sensitivity for the relativity of cultures. Here, it may be interpreted, that mediation research choses those approaches that design cultural conflicts as manageable cases. Theory on conflict mediation thus hides a blind spot ignoring and denying the potential case of a conflict that cannot be addressed properly.