'We Don’t Negotiate with Terrorists': Navigating Illiberal Norms in International Peace Mediation

The normative framework in mediation processes is growing. Mediators are increasingly expected by their mandate givers to incorporate norms into their overall strategy. Apart from being charged with resolving violent conflict, mediators are expected to incorporate norms such as inclusivity based on liberal notions of equality and human rights into their overall strategy. However, in the wake of 9/11 and the policy shifts that accompanied the ‘Global War on Terror,’ mediators find themselves simultaneously pressured to design mediation processes actively excluding proscribed armed groups, and consequently incorporating this illiberal norm excluding from armed groups designated as terrorists from access to negotiations. This article investigates the agency of mediators in norm diffusion in mediation processes, focusing on the illiberal norm of prohibiting mediators to engage with proscribed armed groups in negotiations. It asks to what extent mediators can still be considered liberal norm entrepreneurs, or if they should rather be considered illiberal norm entrepreneurs, based on if and how they incorporate this norm into their overall mediation strategy. This article argues that mediators can be both liberal and illiberal norm entrepreneurs, and the liberal-illiberal distinction is a false dichotomy. First, mediators are not heterogeneous in terms of their mandate-givers, and their normative agency depends largely on the parameters outlined by whom they work for. Second, the lack of conceptual coherence of what inclusion and exclusion means in mediation processes can render policies and practice around the norm both liberal and illiberal. Third, the varying objectives of mediation processes (ending violence or redefining society values) can result in norms being used or promoted as an illiberal means towards a liberal end. Through content analysis of ongoing Track I mediation processes that either exclude or include proscribed armed groups, the article aims to provide insights into illiberal norms, who acts as illiberal norm entrepreneurs and how mechanisms of illiberal norm diffusion take place in mediation processes.