3.1 The Rise of NGO Mediators in Contemporary Peacemaking

The increasing prevalence and salience of NGO mediators (Aall 1996; Taulbee and Creekmore 2003; Lanz et al. 2009; Babbitt 2009; Bandarage 2011; Shea 2016; Lehti and Lehpomäki 2017) offer a promising avenue for norm diffusion in mediation. NGOs “bridge the normative and the material gap” (28) by socializing states into accepting and complying with global norms and are concerned with building normative consensus on various topics.

A number of studies have analyzed this new development in peacemaking (Lehrs 2016; Lehti 2019) and suggest a range of factors that have facilitated the rise of private diplomacy and mediation on both the demand and supply side of peacemaking. Lanz et al. (2009) sought to define this new phenomenon, describing NGO mediators as “non-state actors that are not formally part of a government or an inter-governmental organization and who work as intermediaries in conflict settings” (3). While international NGOs existed before the modern era, with missionaries, religious orders and scientific communities conducting activities across continents, the term “non-governmental organization” was catapulted into use via the United Nations Charter.Footnote 1 Chapter X, Article 71 of the UN Charter allowed for UN ECOSOC to consult with NGOs, which greatly altered their legitimacy in the international arena:

The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.Footnote 2

Since then, the number of international NGOs working around the globe on a vast array of issue areas, from the environment to human rights, has increased sharply. In the arena of humanitarian aid, NGOs have had a formative impact on the field early on, from the 1834 creation of the “International Association,” to the Parisian “Leave of the Just,” to the “International Shipwreck Society,” to, most critically, the Red Cross movement in 1863 aiming to provide neutral assistance to those wounded in armed conflict. Almost a century later, the destruction of World War II facilitated the emergence of many of the field’s most prominent NGOs, including Oxfam and Care International. The prominence of these NGOs characterized them as neutral relief and aid organizations first and foremost—they did not play a political role, and their existence, legitimacy and reach was predicated on their perceived neutrality amongst the communities they reached.Footnote 3

The post–Cold War period ushered in shift away from a state-centric focus to a more diffused and decentralized environment for a multitude of actors. It is in this globalized and decentralized context (Toepler et al. 1999) that a booming number of NGOs became active in peacemaking (Anheier et al. 2001).Footnote 4 Not only were NGOs increasing in number, but their roles were changing as well. Debiel and Sticht (2005) note that NGOs were changing fields: in addition to the “classic” fields of humanitarian aid and relief, poverty reduction, healthcare provision, working with rural populations and education, “a new type of NGO has appeared, conflict resolution NGOs” (2).

Faith-based NGOs and religious entities such as the Quakers and the Vatican are perceived as early examples of private and unofficial mediation actors. The mediation experiences of the Quakers have already been documented in academic literature, such as: American Quaker Elmore Jackson’s assignment with the UN in Kashmir in 1952–1953; American Friends Service Committee’s Clarence E. Pickett’s involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an “impartial presence in Jerusalem” during the critical juncture of 1948; and the Quaker mediation in the two Germanys (1962–1973), the India-Pakistan war of 1965, and Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe between 1972 and 1980 (Yarrow 1978; Bailey 1985). The Vatican’s mediation of the 1978–1979 Beagle Channel Dispute between Chile and Argentina is a significant case study on “alternative” forms of legitimated power and influence (Greig and Diehl 2012). The US Ambassador to the Holy See called the Vatican the “world’s best listening post” that could draw its “subtle bases of influence” not from military resources but from the Catholic Church’s moral legitimacy, confidentiality, international audience and information network (Princen 1992, 171). Private individuals such as scholars or scholar practitioners (Hare 1992; Kelman 1992; Bercovitch and Kadayifci-Orellana 2009) played important facilitative roles with parties to conflict through “interactional problem solving workshops” (Kelman 1992, 64) that served as informal relationship and trust-building opportunities. Eminent persons also mediating outside formal roles include former US president Jimmy Carter mediating in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1989, Haiti in 1994 and Sudan in 1995, and Julius Nyerere’s multiple mediation attempts in Burundi (Greig and Diehl 2012). Moreover, former South African president Nelson Mandela, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Finnish president Maarti Ahtisaari and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu have all played prominent mediation roles as eminent persons tasked to resolve protracted conflicts (Grieg and Diehl 2012).

A key uniting element are these private actors’ power of deniability (Lehrs 2022). For instance, the Quakers and other private (non-state) actors describe their unofficial status and their political flexibility as a way to increase their political room for maneuver. The personal account of Hare’s involvement in the Cyprus negotiations in the early 1970s illustrate this point:

I approached the Chief UN Political Officer “I noted that we were on Cyprus to work along the lines of the UN mandate and in cooperation with them. I asked what our relationship would be. ‘You have no relationship,’ was the reply. […] it finally dawned on me. ‘You mean we have no (official) relationship.’ […] it was obvious, then, that the UN could have no responsibility for whatever we might say or do’. (Hare 1992, 59)

While these cases of private and unofficial mediation set an important precedent in analyses of peacemaking efforts, scholars note that mediations of this kind were “rare and generally confined to humanitarian objectives” like ceasefires and aid delivery (Crocker et al. 1999, 6). The case of Community of Sant’Egidio, a public lay organization of the Catholic Church, mediating between the socialist FRELIMO government and the rebel group RENAMO in Mozambique’s long-running civil war and brokering a peace agreement in 1992, is an important turning point in conceptualizing NGO mediators (Hume 1994; Babbitt 2009). Bartoli’s (1999) insider account of Sant’Egidio’s role in the peace process showed how a private organization used trusted relationships and connections built over time with key influencers (e.g. Mozambiquan bishop of Beira Goncalves) and stakeholders (Enrico Berlinguer, head of Communist Party of Italy) to offer its support first as observers and then as third party hosting the talks in their headquarters at a former convent of Carmelite nuns in Rome. Sant’Egidio built relationships with big powers like the US, through regular contact with the American Ambassador to the Holy See, and with UN with regular communication with the UN headquarters (ibidem). Aall posits that this strategy did not allow a single powerful actor to force itself into negotiations, and that this series of strategic alliances allowed Sant’Egidio to “borrow power to reward and coerce” (2001, 375). Bartoli (1999) also touts their approach of incremental steps, building trust, employing emotional intelligence and not taking any monetary compensation for mediation as key elements to their engagement. While Sant’Egidio remains distinct from “professional NGOs” as their mandates for preventing and mediating violent conflicts are explicitly faith based in nature, the case of Mozambique allowed the international community to empirically discover that NGOs can contribute positively to peace processes and under certain circumstances, “may be better placed than more traditional diplomatic actors to play the lead role in conflict resolution initiatives” (Bartoli 1999, 255).

Over the last 30 years, private diplomacy became increasingly professionalized, with private NGOs taking on political roles in peace processes (Diebel and Sticht 2005). Early pioneers in the field such as International Alert, Search for Common Ground and the Carter Center (Haiti, North Korea, Bosnia, Great Lakes Region) (Aall 2001, 374) were established in the 1980s and quickly expanded their sphere of activities from health services provision and arms control towards mediation (Rupesinghe 1997; Taulbee and Creekmore 2003; Lehti and Lehpomäki 2017). Policy-makers in the peacemaking field were not quite sure what to make of this development, as cited in conference proceedings from a Swedish-organized international conference on “Government-NGO Relations in Preventing Violence, Transforming Conflict and Building Peace” in 1997. The conference proceedings stated that conflict resolution NGOs are understood as “professional NGOs focused on practitioner skills of conflict resolution, mediation and reconciliation,” while also positing that this field is “so new” that these professional organizations exist primarily as national organizations (Boulding 1997, 74). They grouped these “professional NGOs” (Boulding 1997) amongst peace research and peace studies programs; scientists focused on peace and disarmament; peacebuilding training centers; bodies maintaining databases (or peace research institutes); peace teams/peace services; youth and women peace NGOs, and NGOs acting within an NGO-UN interface.

The emergence of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre)Footnote 5 in 1999 and the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) in 2000 brought new actors to the fore in the field of private diplomacy: actors that not only supported mediation, but brokered peace agreements themselves. The notion of “professional” organizations dedicated wholly to mediation and conflict resolution was attributed in part to these high-profile NGOs whose leadership actively brokered agreements between conflicting parties (Martin 2006; Gorman and Kivomäki 2008; Lehti and Lepomäki 2017). For instance, the HD Centre is seen by many as one of the most prominent NGO mediators in the field, and their propagation of an “unconventional” (Martin 2006) and ground-breaking method combining professional expertise and private diplomacy as a modular form of operations has ushered in a new set of actors into the mediation field. The Aceh conflict remains the most researched and high-profile experience of NGO mediation. Martin Griffiths, the founder of the HD Centre dubbed “the Professional Maverick” by journalist Harriet Martin in her treatise on different mediator types (Martin 2006), encountered his first litmus test mediating the decades-long armed conflict between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (Huber 2004; Gorman and Kivomäki 2008; Shea 2016).

While the HD Centre–led process overseen by Griffiths succeeded early on in getting both parties to the table, the ceasefire soon fell through and the process was handed over to another NGO, newly minted CMI helmed by veteran Finnish mediator Marti Ahtissari. Despite the “promises and pitfalls” (Huber 2004) of the mediation, the Aceh process set a new precedent for NGO mediation. As the Economist noted in 2011 in an article titled “Privatizing Peace,”Footnote 6 the onset of NGO mediation marks a shift in the way diplomats and other conventional political actors try to solve conflicts. After Aceh, NGOs were no longer confined to aid-giving and disaster relief, but were seen as playing an ever-greater role in conflict resolution.

The rise in prominence of NGO mediators was further bolstered by a shift in the mediation field in the mid-2000s towards professionalization and expertise (Lehmann-Larsen 2014; Convergne 2016). Following the 2009 UN Report of the Secretary General on “Enhancing mediation and its support activities” (United Nations 2009), the emergence of bespoke mediation support entities in the mid-2000s modeled after the UN’s prototypical Mediation Support Unit (Whitfield 2015) has invited new actors into the fold. Now, NGOs can “do” mediation as in the Mozambique and Aceh cases, “support” mediation through research, capacity building and operational support (Stenner 2017; Lehmann-Larsen 2014; Lanz et al. 2017), or undertake a bit of both. While Stenner (2017) argues that mediation support has existed as long as mediation itself, mediation support entities—mostly states creating dedicated mediation support units in their foreign ministriesFootnote 7 or networks of NGOs supporting peace processes (Lanz et al. 2017)—are a relatively recent phenomenon. The comparative advantage of NGOs acting as both mediators and mediation support actors has further cemented their role as key players in contemporary peacemaking.

3.2 The Alternative Legitimacy of NGOs as Mediators

NGO mediators subscribe to two main identities: mediation actors and members of an epistemic community of mediation practitioners (Haas and Haas 2002). These multiple identities require NGO mediators to walk the tightrope between a normative and pragmatic approach; an orientation towards a normative good or towards strategic consequences (see Ambos et al. 2009; Sriram 2007). Their dual roles as both doing mediation as mediation practitioners while also assessing the mediation field as part of an epistemic community (Haas 1992) raises many questions related to their normative agency. NGO mediators have carved a very powerful niche for themselves in the peacemaking world: they capitalize on the moral claims of representing a “global civil society that transcends national boundaries in its concern for human wellbeing” (Boulding 1997, 70) while undertaking political roles previously reserved for state or inter-governmental actors. In an environment where conflicts are no longer territorial in nature, but increasingly result from crises of legitimacy and governance (Paris 2004), NGOs are important actors. An NGO mediator’s normative agency is predicated on this “niche” form of NGO legitimacy made up of characteristics specific to NGO mediators. As previously mentioned, NGOs do not possess the political leverage sometimes needed to bring parties to agreement when the context requires mediation with more “muscle” (Touval 1996). Therefore, their particular set of traits and comparative advantages (Vukovic 2015) forms a sort of alternative form of legitimacy emphasizing “soft” power, such as persuasion and influence that underpins all aspects of their normative agency discussed in this book.

“Our weakness is our strength”Footnote 8 is a common refrain among NGO mediators. It is widely acknowledged among mediation scholars and mediation practitioners that NGO mediators do not wield a high amount of leverage, as they often do not have official mandates (Nathan 2017). As one private mediator shared, “mandated mediators have a greater degree of leverage. You don’t have leverage as a private mediator.”Footnote 9 Another NGO mediator observed that if an NGO mediator does gain a mandate from the parties, they have very little authority to impose any conditions—authority on decision-making comes from the parties.Footnote 10 Given their limited ability to coerce or provide incentives to negotiating parties, what then accounts for their increased prominence in peace processes?

Several studies offer an explanation for this, helping us understand the prevalence of weak mediators in mediation processes. To be sure, “weak” mediation does not mean ineffective or irrelevant, but rather refers to the limited “carrots and sticks” available to the mediator (Beardsley 2009). Citing former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan mediation of a power-sharing agreement during election-related violence in Kenya in 2008, and Martii Ahtisaari’s brokering of a peace agreement through CMI in Aceh, Beardsley attempts to provide explanations for mediators succeeding without leverage in mediation processes. He posits that firstly, on the “supply side” of mediation, weak mediators are a product of the outsourcing of certain tasks by third parties with greater leverage, who do not have the political will to conduct all elements of mediation themselves. Secondly, on the “demand side” of mediation, Beardsley argues that weak mediators are chosen by conflict parties who want to retain control over the peace process and therefore choose a weak mediator precisely because of their limited leverage. Leverage is not the only modality of power in mediation processes, although it is often treated as such (Kleiboer 2002; Svensson 2007). Power can be compulsory, institutional, structural or productive and the modalities of the power of a mediator are much more complex than simply how much political leverage a mediator yields (Barnett and Duvall 2005; Jones 2015). Two recent studies have challenged outright the notion of a weak mediator. In the first study, Vukovic (2015) argues that the notion of hard power is limiting, especially when analyzing mediators that do not wield it. To Vukovic, other forms of social power, specifically soft power and legitimate power, can also be used by mediators to “manipulate the process and guide the parties” towards a solution in line with the mediator’s interests (2015, 438). Indeed, assertive mediation strategies do not equate to coercion and material awards, but can consist of more productive forms of power (Barnett and Duval 2005) that co-opt parties into accepting solutions initially outside their range of options. In a similar vein, Lehrs’ (2022) study of private peace entrepreneurs (private citizens with no official authority who take on official diplomatic roles in a conflict process) who are distinct from individuals mandated by private organizations such as NGOs, argues that while NGO mediators are seen to have little political power, they are considered to possess a high amount of moral authority, technical expertise and large room for maneuver when it comes to contentious norms such as engaging with proscribed or illegal armed groups or negotiating amnesties. This creates an alternative type of “NGO-legitimacy” in the eyes of some negotiating parties. Certain negotiating parties do not want traditionally powerful actors such as states, UN envoys or inter-governmental and/or regional organizations to intervene as a third-party mediator. These states instead work discreetly with nongovernmental mediators early on in peace processes. In many situations, negotiating parties choose not to invite formal mediators at all. Nongovernmental mediators play important informal roles in these situations.

For instance, private diplomacy is especially relevant in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Member states adhere to the norms of the “ASEAN Way” an extremely strong normative framework that espouses discrete diplomacy and strongly resists international involvement in conflict resolution among ASEAN nation states (Haacke 2003).Footnote 11 The ASEAN Way has important complications for peacemaking. The practice of private and unofficial diplomacy and preference for informal institutions (ibidem) is predicated on the norm of sovereignty. This has meant that classical mediation by state, UN or, especially, regional actors, is not preferred and even actively rejected. This preference has opened up space for private diplomacy actors, illustrated by the peace processes between the Indonesian government and the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) in Aceh and between the Bangsamoro peace process between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Philippines. The resistance to outside norms and preference for private diplomacy makes the role of NGO mediators operating in peace processes in this region particularly relevant, as it tests the limits of mediator agency and diffusion by actors without formal mandates or political leverage, possessing only “ideational” leverage and soft power.

In mediation literature, powerful mediators, who are described as having “muscle,” have a high amount of leverage. Much of this leverage comes from having an official, constitutional or political mandate. However, in mediation as elsewhere, one cannot equate power and legitimacy, as the relationship between them is more complex. As one private mediator explained, “mediators default to authority as a source of mandate when they cannot claim legitimacy through relationships and conversation […] the biggest mistake is to assume that because you have a mandate, you have legitimacy.”Footnote 12 Private mediators can use informal means to build legitimacy through personal relationships and the trust of the parties, which does not necessarily stem from an official mandate. For instance, a private mediator recounted an instance where he informally met parties to conflict in a private dining room in London: “at first the conversation was awkward but then they warmed up, and by main course, I asked, “what are the conversations we have to have?”Footnote 13 This private actor was able to start the conversation with the parties informally, without a mandate. After this entry point, they discussed legal principles, which were then translated into written agreements. NGO mediators draw on similar alternative sources of power (Slim 2002) to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the negotiating parties and among other mediators in the community of practice.

Because NGO mediators draw their legitimacy from a self-sustaining mandate from the parties (Lehti 2019), the consent of the parties is paramount. Kleiboer (1996) attributes the acceptance of a mediator by the parties to a mediator’s impartiality, leverage and status—in other words, characteristics that legitimate a mediator to intervene in a process. However, consent becomes a finicky and perhaps tautological concept when thinking of NGO mediators, as they draw their legitimacy from the consent of the parties. To avoid such tautological formulations of legitimacy as a function of consent and vice versa, a more inductive approach to gauging the attributes of the legitimacy of an NGO mediator in the eyes of a negotiating party proves to be a more useful approach. I ascribe more to Vukovic (2015) and Lehr’s (2016) conception of power and sources of power, and further argue that the “weak” and “strong” labels do not sufficiently account for the elevated roles that NGO mediators now play in contemporary peacemaking. Because of the underlying power dynamics in mediation processes, even traditionally “strong” mediators are bound to their mandate-givers. NGO mediators on the other hand, have even more room for maneuver and can be more flexible.

Therefore, the notion of legitimacy better encompasses the power dynamics and modalities of a mediator vis-à-vis its mandate-giver and the negotiating parties—which in the case of NGO mediators can be one and the same. NGO legitimacy mirrors many of the same resources that Lehrs (2016) describes for private peace entrepreneurs. The HD Centre’s description of its strengths and distinguishing traits are a comprehensive illustration of the sources of NGO mediator legitimacy: “the ability to conduct mediation at the leadership level of parties in conflict; political independence and impartiality; rapid, flexible response and the effective management of discreet processes; readiness to support other lead mediators; relationships with high-level networks; creativity and willingness to take risks for peace; and the capacity to convene.”Footnote 14 CMI’s self-conception is also telling, not only positing that private and independent mediation is more important than ever, but that NGO mediators have certain traits that allow them to conduct NGO mediation effectively:

The work of independent actors is needed now more than ever, as the number of violent conflicts in the world is on the rise, and these conflicts are becoming increasingly complex. Independent actors such as CMI have a crucial role in supporting and supplementing the conflict resolution efforts of official institutions and governments. Our independent status gives us space to act where official actors cannot. We can flexibly move between the various formal and informal processes and actors, bridging gaps where they exist and adding to the overall effectiveness of peace efforts. Our regional expertise, professional methods and relationships have developed over many years, drawing on the legacy of Nobel Peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari, enabling us to do this work effectively and flexibly.Footnote 15

NGOs make claims about their weakness as strengths, or in other words, as a comparative advantage within a “crowded field” (Lanz and Gasser 2013) of mediators. Often, their value added in a mediation process is a function of their comparative advantage over other mediators. NGO mediators often claim that their ability to engage with excluded, proscribed or politically marginalized actors in ways that other actors cannot is a comparative advantage. One inter-governmental organization representative said, “NGOs such as HD […] have had very leading roles in very discreet processes where no other international actor has been able to work for reasons that are difficult for them to talk about.”Footnote 16 An NGO mediator cited the Global War on Terror and the creation of lists of proscribed armed groups as a hindrance to engagement. “By creating [lists], I think the states and multi-laterals who created them shot themselves in the foot, by limiting their possibility of continuing engagement […] they self-excluded themselves […] and left this field for the NGOs only.”Footnote 17 Another NGO mediator argued that NGOs can be flexible in providing support and money to national peace process actors in a way that larger organizations cannot “because then it becomes formal politics and formal relations between countries.”Footnote 18

NGO mediators’ comparative advantage has indeed been utilized by larger, more formal organizations like the UN that outsource politically risky tasks to NGO mediators. For instance, one UN official said that the UN had asked the HD Centre to engage with certain people that they themselves could not reach.Footnote 19 In the framework of extremely fragmented contexts, it has become essential for the UN to “better use available external resources that are provided, in particular by NGOs.”Footnote 20 This can become relevant in many different contexts, including places where the UN is not active, in remote parts of countries, in countries descending into conflict or fragility, or when a process reaches a level of complexity that makes managing all aspects of it extremely difficult for a UN mediator.Footnote 21 For instance, the Office of the Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura asking the NGO swisspeace to help manage the Civil Society Support Room in the Syrian peace process. UN actors also ask NGOs for support on specific tasks that feed into a main process. For instance, SRSGs entrust NGOs to work directly with negotiating parties to “forge a workable degree of unity amongst a group of opposition leaders, or help another opposition group reach a common platform.”Footnote 22 Embassies or state actors often also enlist in the support of NGO mediators. In Myanmar, an Embassy official observed that “in the beginning, nobody talked to the ethnic armed groups. Embassies used the NGOs to talk to the armed ethnic groups. Overtime, the EAGs needed more specific resources”Footnote 23 so the Embassy, the HD Centre and swisspeace shared the responsibilities. Furthermore, NGOs can establish a strong presence in field offices in a context for decadesFootnote 24 or work in countries that are resistant to official mediation from foreign/Western countries.Footnote 25 As an NGO mediator working on the conflicts in southern Philippines commented, “Having NGOs does not internationalize the conflict.”Footnote 26 Some respondents also commented that NGO mediators can work outside a bureaucracy, thereby allowing them to be more entrepreneurial and open to taking risks.Footnote 27 To summarize, NGO mediators wield comparative advantages that strengthen the outlook for their normative agency in regard to power and legitimacy.

NGO mediators’ “alternative” legitimacy can therefore be conceptualized in three main ways. First, moral authority is a salient component of NGO mediator legitimacy. As NGOs are relied on in order to monitor the ethical practices of governments and to undertake humanitarian challenges (Gourevitch et al. 2012), much of their credibility stems from this reputational virtue. Lehrs (2016) also describes private peace actors being perceived as moral actors. Their image as neutral and reliable actors contributes to this type of “moral legitimacy” (Lehrs 2016, 390). As one mediator said, “You don’t have leverage as a private mediator. You do have moral authority, as everyone has a moral framework.”Footnote 28 While NGOs writ large claim moral legitimacy because they are broadly seen as “bearers of values” (Boulding 1997). For instance, Community of Sant’Egidio is a common example of a faith-based organization wielding moral authority in the Mozambique conflict. The Quakers and the Vatican (Bercovitch and Rubin 1992) are also examples of faith-based organizations. Indonesian religious organization Muhammadiyah was part of the Philippines’ Bangsamoro peace process as a member of the International Contact Group (ICG), one of the first officially mandated consortiums of NGO mediators in contemporary peace processes. Having a faith-based organization in the ICG was important for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front because they wielded moral authority as a faith-based organization.

Second, speaking for people at the grassroots level is a claim (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015) that many NGO mediators make in their mission and value statements. The HD Centre, for instance, aims to deploy their expertise to “support local processes that protect civilians and foster lasting and just peace” (HD Centre website, 2018). CITPax uses mediation, facilitation and bridging proposals to find solutions to national and international conflicts via second-track diplomacy, which involves civil society actors with a capacity to influence decision makers. Forward Thinking, a British NGO mediator focusing on conflicts in the Middle East, cites this grassroots normative claim through several practices, including attempting to engage all groups in constructive dialogues and operating a number of inter-cultural political dialogues to bring together diverse communities from across perceived divides. Through these dialogues, Forward Thinking “seeks to enable participants to identify shared challenges and opportunities, work towards better understanding and develop practical initiatives in areas of mutual interests (Forward Thinking website, 2018)”.

NGO mediators also couch their interventions in terms of global, cosmopolitan norms. For instance, CMI’s main aim is “the pursuit of sustainable peace” (CMI website, 2018) while the Berghof Foundation includes in their main value statement: “our engagement is based on the values of inclusivity, ownership and reflection, which guide our decisions” (Berghof Foundation website, 2018). Conciliation Resources envisions “a world where people work together to resolve conflicts and promote peaceful and inclusive societies,”Footnote 29 while Inter Mediate’s central aim of “not to simply end the suffering directly caused by conflict, but also address the problems of poverty, disease and economic stagnation” speaks directly to the liberal peacebuilding paradigm (Inter Mediate website, 2018).

The concrete activities NGO mediators take on early in the process, such as fact-finding, conducting outreach towards hard-to-reach groups, building networks or being a messenger on behalf of armed groups also allow NGO mediators to fulfil a normative claim: they represent unofficial actors vying for greater legitimacy, often at the grassroots level. For instance, NGO mediators can work closely with other civil society actors in a peace process at a similar “level.” An example of this is NGO mediators swisspeace and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) manning the “Civil Society Support Room” in support of the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Syria (Hellmüller and Zahar 2019).

The second component of an NGO mediators’ legitimacy is their informality as private actors. This claim is highlighted by an NGO mediator respondent who stated that the comparative advantage of NGO mediators is that they are private actors that fulfil the functions of states with NGO structures.Footnote 30 NGO mediators’ informality means that NGO mediators are not bound by rigid normative and legal frameworks. This can result in greater political flexibility for NGO mediators. One NGO professional working in mediation stated that NGOs can be “extremely informal and ad hoc,” with an anarchical and organic way of working.Footnote 31

Consequently, a key practice of NGOs is engaging with actors that more formal actors like the UN do not have the time or ability to engage with for political reasons.Footnote 32 As one UN official working in mediation stated: “And then [the armed group] might go to an NGO or be open to an NGO, because they have been sitting there, wanting, thinking that we need to be engaging more […] there are some benefits to engaging, maybe we want to explore a political process. The government just wants to think of us as terrorists, but outside actors could help.”Footnote 33 This is why NGOs often work with armed groups that are too hardline or too politically sensitive for more formal actors to engage with (Haspeslagh 2021). They also work with actors that are not prioritized by formal actors. As one NGO mediator shared: “To be honest, most of the cases where we are working, the armed groups that we engage with, are generally quite desperate. They are generally quite excluded […] For different reasons, the groups that the international community isn’t engaging with much, and so what I think we find is that when you go, if you make the effort to meet with them, you get a lot of trust quite quickly, because they are not meeting others, and because they want to reach out to others, they want to tell their story, they want to explain their position, so I think that’s why we are able to work quite well.”Footnote 34

This informality also secures what Lehrs (2016) calls the power of deniability, in which NGO mediators can test out new ideas, while more powerful actors can distance themselves if things go awry. For instance, an NGO active in mediation and peacebuilding helped set up the Nepal Transition to Peace Forum, which was established as an alternative forum for political elites in the process. The NGO argued that because it had a “certain level of informality and that it wasn’t part of the formal architecture of the process,” it was able to offer a safe space for informal or politically sensitive actors those inclusion in formal talks would be difficult.Footnote 35 For NGOs, creative innovations are possible without the fear of high political blowback. This was apparent in the Carter Center’s private peace mission to North Korea in 1994. As Marion V. Creekmore, who accompanied Jimmy Carter on this mission, stated, “If he were successful, the administration could claim credit; if he failed […] the administration could distance itself from this initiative” (Creekmore 2006, 60). As one mediator says, “Ironically, mediators can get further if they behaved as if they didn’t have a mandate.”Footnote 36 NGO mediators who can navigate within their own organization and institution have a lot of room for maneuver because of the political flexibility that comes with being a private or informal actor, especially when it comes to working with difficult actors: “to be honest, you gotta work with, I don’t know, the ‘bad guys,’ you know, the guys who actually have the power to control the guns and the money, and they’re not always going to be the nice civil society reformist group, right?”Footnote 37

The flexibility of NGO mediators also allows them to respond to quickly shifting mediation contexts. If a process gets stuck, an NGO mediator may not face the same choice of opting out or withdrawing. One NGO mediator described their flexibility in shifting contexts:

Things can change very quickly, so all of a sudden, you are doing something useful with a group, and then it stops for a year. And then a year later, it is a different situation, and you can do something more useful for them at that point, after having not done anything for a year […] That is why we are set up the way we are, because we see that things fluctuate, so it doesn’t make sense to stick to something if it’s not moving. You keep contacts, and keep relationships, but stay flexible.Footnote 38

Informality and flexibility allow private mediators to conduct their work confidentially. CMI states that their “niche” is informal, yet high-level interactions, as the “major added value of our work lies precisely in the unofficial nature of these engagements (CMI website, 2018).

Third, the NGO practice of partnering with a variety of actors is an important source of legitimacy (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015). NGO mediators can draw on access to the UN, insider mediators, hard-to-reach actors or politically unsavory actors. This gives them knowledge and access on a high level that can render them legitimate. NGOs can also create a connection between the parties and states, as many NGOs are funded by governments.Footnote 39 NGOs are appealing to armed groups as interlocutors because the armed groups might be open to having greater access to the outside world, but cannot obtain it due to security concerns or questions surrounding political legitimacy. They are “not going to go in the front door.”Footnote 40 Armed groups, according to one respondent, are also nowadays well informed about what different peacemaking actors are doing. Sometimes an armed group can access peace processes through an NGO mediator that has been involved in the process or has different networks. For instance, one of the core values underlying the Berghof Foundation’s approach is the belief that “partnerships lead to better results,”Footnote 41 (Berghof Foundation website, 2018) as it allows them to create higher levels of synergy and effectiveness. Inter Mediate also referred to the increase in effectiveness that cultivating partnerships yields: “Wherever possible Inter Mediate will draw on and leverage the resources of larger organizations—governments and international institutions that spend billions of dollars annually to deal with the effects of conflict from peacekeeping to humanitarian intervention. Our aim is to increase the effectiveness of some of that spending.”Footnote 42

Furthermore, the institutional structure of international NGOs (Reimann 2006) requires the funds and a budget for many peace process interventions to come in the form of either core funding or project funding. Therefore, maintaining relations and taking into account the political will of donors becomes essential. This is evidenced by the vast number of donors that some of the more high-profile NGO mediators have (often published for transparency and accountability purposes). For instance, in 2018, the HD Centre’s annual income was 31 million Swiss Francs from 25 donors comprised of governments, private foundations and individuals (HD Centre website, 2018).Footnote 43 The HD Centre also relies on the Swiss government for its headquarters and other administrative and legal functions. In another example, CMI’s largest funder is the government of Finland, which funded 53% of the organization in 2016. The Initiative also employs a hybrid of government funding (Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Australia), regional organizations such as the EU, foundations and private sources (CMI website, 2018). The breakdown is similar for British Conciliation Resources, with 22 donors (Conciliation Resources website, 2018) and the German Berghof Foundation have also had 22 “past and present donors” in their 40-year existence (Berghof Foundation website, 2018).

Such an institutional structure that allows them to stay in a given context for a long time lends to their legitimacy in the eyes of the negotiating parties and the larger public. For instance, much of the Asia Foundation’s involvement in the ICG was carried out by a single staff member who had been living and working in the Philippines for around two decades. Because of the ICG’s track record and contributions to the Philippine peace process over a continuous period, “you kind of end up having the trust and the networks […] that allow you to get involved. Or people come to you and ask you to help out with stuff.”Footnote 44 As Amsterdam-based NGO mediator Dialogue Advisory Group (DAG) claims, its low profile and capacity to maintain relationships over time allows it to discreetly address sensitive issues and build trust.Footnote 45 As Lehrs (2016) argues, NGOs advocate for a “sustained level of engagement over a longer time-period” working to open spaces for dialogue and peacebuilding initiatives over the longer term. NGOs, as private actors, can “fulfill the functions of states but with NGO structures, as specialized actors with specific roles and expertise—this is apparent as contemporary conflicts are more complex and fragmented, and NGOs do not have to be caught up with “status heavy conversations” that don’t leave room for pragmatic questions and issues.Footnote 46 These developments are described in the pithily titled Economist article, “Not your average diplomats,”Footnote 47 which features NGO mediators the HD Centre, CMI, Inter Mediate, the Ottawa Dialogue and the European Institute of Peace, among many others.

3.3 Three Types of NGO Mediators

The “normative socialization” of NGO mediators varies due to the heterogeneity of the growing number of NGO mediators active in the “crowded field” (Lanz and Gasser 2013) of peace mediation today. There have been various attempts to map out the number and type of NGO mediators, for instance Herrberg and Kumpulainen’s (2008) mapping of “high-profile” private diplomacy actors, as well as networks such as the Applied Conflict Resolution’ Organizations Network (founded in 2000), the Mediation Support Network (founded in 2008), the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers (founded in 2013), Convenor’s Community of Practice (founded in 2018) and the European Union Community of Practice (founded in 2017) and the “rapidly increasing” (Fellin and Turner 2021, 287) number of Women’s mediator networks, such as the Nordic Women Mediators Network launched in 2015, the Mediterranean Women Mediator’s Network launched in 2017, the African Network of Women in Conflict Prevention and Peace Mediation (FemWise-Africa) launched in 2017, Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth launched in 2018, and the Global Alliance of Women’s Mediator Networks launched in 2018. Therefore, the “continuously changing” profiles, numbers and agendas of NGO mediators (Lehti 2019) makes counting and mapping them less useful than understanding a rough typology of mediators’ “self-conceptualizations” that directly inform how they view, interpret or treat norms in peace processes.

First, “local-insider” NGO mediators claim “insider status” (Svensson and Lindgren 2013) based on the claims of what Pring and Palmiano Federer refer to as “local agency”: “proximity to the conflict, embedded expertise in the context, and long-standing formal and informal channels as their advantage” (2020, 5). Organizations like the Euro Burma Office (Myanmar), CINEP or the Zimbabwe Institute could be seen as local-insider NGO mediators. Second, there are a group of NGO mediators that can be understood as “regional outsiders”Footnote 48 that operate within a certain geographical region, who also similarly claim insider status and local agency, but with specific characteristics such as “geographic proximity, shared political, cultural and historical ties,” and importantly, “shared value systems” (Pring and Palmiano Federer 2020, 4) influence their normative socializations. The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding and ACCORD are examples in the African region, while the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies is based in Siem Reap but works in peace processes all over South East Asia. The “regional outsider” type can, in the case of CPCS, “sleep outside the fray and come in with clean energy.” This regional proximity gives CPCS normative independence on how and when they want to engage in a context.Footnote 49 Third, the largest group of NGO mediators can be termed the “international” NGO mediator, which are professionalized international NGOs that work in a large number of contexts outside the region where they are based. The most prominent international NGO mediator is the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, or the HD Centre. The HD Centre illustrates an international model of how a private organization conducts mediation in a large number of varied conflict contexts. Given their history and prominence in the NGO mediation field, they constitute a type of international NGO mediator that espouses a “modular technique” of private mediation. They “were active in more than 75% of the world’s most dangerous conflicts.”Footnote 50 The HD Centre is an example of an NGO mediator “self-mandating” through entry points developed from arriving in the conflict context, conducting outreach and scoping missions, employing national staff, gaining the trust of local partners and eventually forging the trust of the negotiating parties. According to respondents, HD’s Myanmar program and activities is the largest staff/team the organization employs “on the ground.”Footnote 51 Perhaps to a greater degree than the other two types of NGO mediators, the international modular also couch their interventions in different conflict context in terms of global, cosmopolitan norms, some of which are defining elements of their self-conceptualizations. For instance, the HD Centre’s activity is predicated on one of the most morally untouchable global norms, the norms of humanitarianism (even their name assumes a wholly principled raison d’être).Footnote 52 For others, such as the Crisis Management Institute, their normative foundation rests on the “Finnish Way” approach to resolving conflicts (Lehti 2019), while for others such as swisspeace and the Berghof Foundation, their normative framework rests on the interplay of research and practice, while for others still, their normative foundation rests on a niche form of conducting dialogue itself, such as Ottawa Dialogue’s focus on Track Two Diplomacy or the Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s focus on ocean governance.

3.4 Concluding Thoughts

Since their foray into the mediation field, NGO mediators have also been met with a range of critical responses, from incredulity to derision. Aall outlined the main worry at hand when experts first gathered to discuss the new role of NGOs in peace processes: “are NGOs fully equipped to handle all dimensions of complex emergencies, including violent conflict? (1996, preface, v).” However, given the current reality of NGO mediation, the main critique is presently not one of capacity, but of accountability. The informality of NGO mediators can be a boon for the more formal actors that seek to outsource more politically risky activities to them. However, in a mediation environment that is competitive, crowded and uncoordinated, this behavior can be off-putting to other actors (Hara 1999), described in one account of an NGO mediator acting like “cowboys” engaging directly with negotiating parties without, in their opinion, consulting and coordinating with other mediation actors working in the context (Martin 2006). Are NGO mediators then mavericks or cowboys (Palmiano Federer 2021)? While a binary conception is not helpful, it must be acknowledged that NGO mediators are niche actors (Martin 2006), and because they work in a private capacity, have greater room for maneuvering to fill that niche. What perhaps is a more fundamental ethical critique is the preponderance of NGO mediators hailing from the Global North working in contexts in the Global South, heavily critiqued by some as “a world of professional mediators curiously uninterested in the particulars—cultural, political and historical—of conflicts” that “fly in, settle conflict, and fly out” without understanding and embracing the “thicker normative values that must accompany any truly successful conflict resolution” (Chan 2011, 271). How this complex portrait of NGO mediators’ normative socializations plays out when promoting the norm of “inclusive peace” is explored in the following chapter.