Introduction

This chapter presents the background to and the rationale for the study of multiparty mediation in the Tajik conflict, by outlining the state of the scholarship and practice of international mediation in violent conflicts in the post-Cold War era and beyond. The chapter seeks to construct an analytical framework using Christopher Mitchell’s “mediation-as-process model” as its foundation. It does so by incorporating the interest-based notion of mediators’ behaviors and the cooperation among them, substantiating Mitchell’s tentative implication of a “coordinator” role, and conceptualizing complementarity and interconnections among intermediary roles. The chapter also reflects on the merits and limitations of the methodology adopted in this book, that of a single case study viewed through the lens of an analytical framework.