Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution

In this thought-provoking, passionately written book, Bernard Mayer―an internationally acclaimed leader in the field―dares practitioners to ask the hard questions about alternative dispute resolution. What’s wrong with conflict resolution? Why aren’t more individuals and organizations using conflict resolution when they have a problem? Why doesn’t the public know more about it? What are the limits of conflict resolution? When does conflict resolution work and when does it not?  Offering a committed practitioner’s critique of the profession of mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution, Beyond Neutrality focuses on the current crisis in the field of conflict resolution and offers a pragmatic response.

Bernard S. Mayer, Ph.D., is a partner at CDR Associates, in Boulder, Colorado. He has worked since the late 1970s in the conflict resolution field as a mediator, facilitator, trainer, researcher, program administrator, and dispute systems designer. He is the author of The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2000), as well as many other writings about conflict and conflict resolution.