Shuttle diplomacy was coined as a term in the early 1970s by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, when he was attempting to negotiate the end of the Yom Kippur War.
Since that time, those in the field of conflict resolution have adapted the term to describe the process used when parties cannot meet in person due to distance or discomfort. It is most relevant in international conflicts where one party does not recognize the existence or diplomatic standing of another party, and so they refuse to negotiate directly.
Thus, the “shuttle” aspect refers to the process of moving back and forth between the two parties.
EXAMPLE
The Yom Kippur War in 1973 was a war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. Initial attempts to directly negotiate an end to the hostilities failed, in part because Syria refused to negotiate directly with Israel, due to not recognizing Israel as a country. The use of shuttle diplomacy allowed the parties to reach an agreement to end the fighting without requiring them to interact directly with one another first.When serving as a liaison between the two parties, the conflict resolver’s role in shuttle diplomacy is to carry:
This process might sound a bit like conciliation, which you learned about in an earlier lesson.
If you remember, conciliation is a conflict resolution process in which the conflict resolver, or conciliator, meets privately with each conflicting party and seeks to gain concessions from each.
In this process, the conciliator moves between parties in separate meeting rooms or separate buildings, which seems very similar to the role of the conflict resolver in shuttle diplomacy.
However, the major difference is that conciliation focuses both the tangible issues (messages, questions, etc.) mentioned above and non-tangible issues, such as:
Source: Adapted from Sophia tutorial by Marlene Johnson.