International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict
	Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA

Assisted Scoping

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Just as reframing is often best accomplished with the help of an outside third party (or an insider partial who is acting as a mediator), scoping is also often done with the assistance of a third party.  The third party can usually bring a broader and less biased view of the situation, and can help the parties see things that they did not see before.  Experienced third parties can also explain how this conflict relates to others, either on-going or in the past, which helps the parties understand the scope of their problem.  Since framing and scoping are usually done together by mediators, more information on assisted scoping and framing can be found in the write-up on Joint Reframing/Assisted Reframing.

Links to Examples of Assisted Scoping

John Paul Lederach -- Central American Conflict Resolution

This article describes how insider partial mediators help people in conflict in Central America to come to a new, shared understanding about their situation and how to "get out" of it.  This process involves both framing and scoping.

 

Virgil Peterson -- The Rabbi's Resolution and the Power of Stories

This is a story about assisted reframing and rescoping.  By finding an outside person (a Rabbi) to reinterpret their problem, the disputants in this case were able to see their situation in a very new perspective, which enabled them to resolve it easily when they could not before.

 

William Zartman and Saadia Touval -- International Mediation in the Post- Cold War Era

Assisted, joint reframing and scoping is one of the many contributions a mediator can make toward resolving international conflicts.

Links to Related Approaches

All forms of Framing

Links to Related Problems

Framing Problems

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