Issue 12. Second half 2013

Mediation and negotiation are continuously spreading as efficient practices for the
improvement and resolution of conflicts. The traditional link between politics and conflict establishes a close connection between both techniques to political knowledge and practice. The text presents this situation and the most common problems and dilemmas in search of a debate that produces conclusions that contribute to progress in the definition of alternative strategies for conflict resolution.

The purpose of this study was to elaborate a questionnaire for assessing participant’s satisfaction in family mediation, Civil Mediation Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSM-C). This instrument was an adaptation of the Criminal Mediation Satisfaction Questionnaire. The sample was composed by 405 voluntary participants, of which 52.8% were women and 47.2% males. The 64.0% of the whole sample finished the Family Mediation Program with signed agreements, but the others did not. The final CSM-C was composed by a main scale of 5 items, one for global assessing and one item more to recommendation. The results obtained showed unidimensionality of a scale and internal consistency (a= 0.885) of the scale, which also demonstrated construct validity. The structure is useful for assessing the participant’s satisfaction in family mediation and firmed agreements. For future studies it might be necessary to validate this instrument in other civil mediation programs.

Is presented in this article as the Economic Crisis is producing profound changes in traditional structures which oblige answer inevitably, above all in order to serve and support citizens who undergoes a transformation without parallel, a social crisis that needs to be addressed through an integrated approach, and as mediation can be an instrument that contributes to a coping with the social crisis in a peaceful, only way is to get a peaceful transition to a new social reality still under construction (towards a free and responsible citizenship). There will be a brief conceptual approach to foreclosure mediation as well as the project and your specific model designed in the practical experiences developed in Cantabria (Spain).

Mediation turned out to be a useless process for a great number of conflicts. Concerning the problems of housing, it is being used as a way to solve a wide range of types of problems. One of the most urgent one is illegal squatting of homes in Spain. Due to its idiosyncrasy it is difficult to know the number of homes that are being illegally squatted, but, no doubt, it accounts for more than tens of thousands. Based on the mediation practice and philosophy, an interdisciplinary team has created a useful, specific and resolution-centered methodology to set agreements between the financial institutions owning the properties and the occupying families, thus satisfying the legitimate demands of the former and the housing needs of the latter.

Mediation as a method for conflict resolution provides actual savings in economic, legal, administrative and personal terms that can be very well extrapolated, due to its social interaction, to the Spanish police environment, particularly, to the Civil Guard. For this reason, it is necessary to study and further develop the agents’ abilities that are closely related to mediation and its process, thanks to what we call Abilities Improvement Plan which is included in the Comprehensive Management Plan for Conflict Resolution through Mediation. The aim is no other than the beneficial repercussion on Social Peace and Law and Order and the additional guarantee regarding the citizenship, as recipient of high quality Police Services.