In this article the author points to mediation as an appropriate tool for managing highly complex societies, identifying its flexibility almost fluidity as the most relevant feature thereof. Adopting a normative-realistic perspective, based on empirical observation of mediation processes and the behaviours of mediators, the author argues for the unique theoretical/operational specificity of mediation, that makes this process very different from any pre-modern, non institutional practice. The diffusion of mediation is related to the evolution of social and political structures, and is strictly connected to the development of western democracies.