Form of third party intervention
Taxonomy of Methods Mediation may be the most common form of third-party intervention, but it is in theory and practice usually augmented by a number of other methods. Numerous terms abound in the third-party literature: conciliation, fact-finding, good offices, peer mediation, arbitration, facilitation, adjudication, mediation-arbitration, policy dialogue, and consensus building. The fact that third parties operate at many levels and in many different sectors within and between societies simply adds to the complexity and the confusion. Some of these roles involve interveners in their official capacity, while others are performed in a more informal manner. Some interventions operate at the highest levels of decision-making (macro), while others depend on influence given at the middle (meso) ranges of society, while yet others typically work at the community or grassroots (micro) level.