This provocative book develops empowerment theory in the context of community mediation. Schwerin uses a case study of a large urban community mediation program to explore the empowerment concept and to assess widely believed hypotheses about empowerment and community mediation. The major contributions of this work to Transformational Politics and the community mediation movement include the development and elaboration of empowerment theory; the analysis of mediation ideology, mediation training, and mediation process; and the exploration of the linkage between community mediation and personal and social transformation.