Conflict Management and Mediation Theory: South Africa's Role in Burundi's Civil Conflict

Mediation is a peaceful method of third-party intervention in resolving regional and international crises without resorting to seemingly inevitable war. The literature on international mediation generally draws four contextual and process variables affecting the mediation outcomes. The three contextual variables are (a) the nature of the dispute; (b) the nature of the disputed parties; and (c) the nature of the mediator. The process variable is the mediator strategies. Unlike international relations theorists focusing on explaining the causes of war between states, most conflicts since 1945 have arisen within, rather than between, states, especially in Third World countries such as those in the African region. With this problem in mind, the research focus of this paper is to investigate the role played by third-party interveners in contemporary African civil conflicts within the same nation state by specifically assessing South Africa's mediating role (especially the facilitating role of the former South African President Nelson Mandela) in resolving the Burundi civil conflict based on the above four variables suggested by mediation literature.