Contemporary international conflict mediation is at a crossroads. The comprehensive, inclusive peace agreements pursued over the past decades by actors such as the UN are increasingly challenged by short-term, transactional deals negotiated by actors less committed to liberal normative agendas. This book is a timely contribution to debates among scholars and practitioners about the future of peace mediation and normative agendas such as Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Stanford analyses UN mediation as a gendered and colonial institution and argues that the WPS agenda has been co‑opted and stripped of much of its transformative potential. Rather than challenging existing power structures , women’s inclusion and ‘gender perspectives’ have largely been treated as technical add‑ons to established mediation models. As a result, WPS is incorporated in ways that leave core practices and hierarchies intact. Central to Standfield’s analysis is the tension between : ‘mediation as science’ and ‘mediation as art’. Headquarters staff and mediation experts lean to the first approach, viewing WPS as a means of improving and legitimising existing practices through expertise and evidence. In contrast, Special Envoys and field‑based staff often see mediation as an art, in which gender equality and women’s inclusion are perceived as potentially disruptive to carefully managed relationships with negotiating parties. While the logic of mediation as science has been dominant, Standfield shows that its limitations for advancing the WPS agenda are becoming increasingly evident to both scholars and practitioners. The book thus makes a significant contribution to critical feminist peace research and offers a sobering assessment of the constraints facing normative agendas in contemporary mediation. It is essential reading for those committed to advancing WPS within UN mediation and beyond.