This dissertation analyzes from a Conflict Resolution perspective the process of conflict management between catholic nationalists and protestant unionists in Northern Ireland. This process ended with the signature of the Good Friday Agreement in April of 1998. The strategy employed in the negotiations presupposed a twin track approach: the elaboration of a power sharing political arrangement and the implementation of confidence building measures for the decommissioning of arms by paramilitary groups. This dissertation aims to problematize mediation as an elitist conflict resolution process that considers conflict essentially in terms of a bargaining problem. Mediation is understood as a process that does not encourage the reconciliation of antagonist communities and the generation of a culture of cooperation, failing to promote confidence between the parties and imposing setbacks in the implementation of the peace agreement. Although mediation was able to offer to the belligerents parties a political alternative, the conflict in the region remained latent, with the escalation of violence during crucial moments when the negotiations were moving forward. This study concludes that the peace agreement was achieved much due to the disengagement of civil society in the conflict and the recognition of the parties that they would not win the conflict by forceful means. This conclusion points to the necessity of complementing the elitist approach with civil society conflict resolution initiatives in order to explain the evolution of the peace process in Northern Ireland towards conflict transformation and positive peace.