This analysis examines the rise and political promotion of mediation in the settlement of land-use-related environmental conflicts in the state of Hawaii and counters much of the enthusiastic praise of mediation. The study adopts a political economy approach informed by the structural class-centric state perspective in order to illustrate the economic roots of political facilitation of environmental mediation. It is argued that environmental mediation has emerged as a political tool to demobilize and depoliticize conflicts on behalf of the state and industry interests. Environmental mediation is studied as an important mechanism for the state to cope with its dual and contradictory role—a role that involves both the minimization of political legitimation crisis and the promotion of capital accumulation and expansion.

This discussion forwards a political economy framework for the analysis of the role and impact of political intervention on the process and outcome of environmental conflicts. The proposed analytic approach, advocated by the class‐centric state perspective, focuses on the economic roots of political action in conflict situations. The paper provides a critique of the existing analytic approaches to conflict analysis. The paper also offers a brief account of Hawaii's land use policy and history of land‐related environmental conflicts to illustrate the potential of the political economy approach.