Reframing Peace Mediation: Lessons for Community Mediation with Owen Frazer

Reframing is a fundamental tool of mediators. Yet, how do mediators get parties to accept new framings they put forward? In his book Reframing Peace Mediation: Overcoming Negotiation Impasses in El Salvador, Dr. Owen Frazer presents three underlying mechanisms that explain how a mediator can get their framing adopted by the negotiating parties, thereby advancing the negotiations. Based on an empirical analysis of the United Nations mediation in El Salvador between 1990 and 1992, the book contributes to our understanding of how peace mediation works.

Join the roundtable to learn more about framing and reframing in peace mediation and discuss the similarities and differences with mediation in community settings.

Dr. Owen Frazer is a Senior Conflict Transformation Advisor with Helvetas, a Swiss development NGO with programmes in 30 countries. Since June 2026 he also works as a mediator in the penal mediation unit of the public prosecutor’s office of the Swiss Canton of Zurich. From 2021 to 2022 he was a negotiation and mediation advisor with the Berghof Foundation.

Between 2011 and 2020 he worked in the Mediation Support Team of the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, assisting Swiss government efforts to transform social and political conflicts.

Prior to this, he worked for WaterAid UK and Oxfam GB, before spending several years on international postings as a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross. A certified mediator with an MA in conflict resolution and a PhD on the topic of peace mediation, his book Reframing Peace Mediation: Overcoming Negotiation Impasses in El Salvador is based on his PhD thesis, which won the UK Development Studies Association PhD thesis prize for 2023.

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This session fulfills part of the continuing education requirement for CDSC mediators.