The Dynamics of International Negotiation: Essays on Theory and Practice

This book explores the dynamics of international negotiations from the perspectives of researchers and practical negotiators. Reinforcing the idea that the study of negotiation is not merely an academic endeavor, the essays reflect the author’s lifetime experiences as a negotiation researcher and provider of analytical support to international negotiation teams. Addressing a wide range of critical issues, such as creativity and experimentation, psychological dynamics, avoiding incomplete agreements, engineering the negotiation context, reframing negotiations for development conflicts, understanding what matters when implementing agreements, utilizing decision support systems, engaging new actors, and expanding core values, each chapter opens new doors on our conceptual and practical understanding of international negotiations. The author introduces new ways of understanding and explaining the negotiation process from different intellectual perspectives. The goal of this book is to resolve many critical unanswered questions by stimulating new research on these dynamics and developing new approaches that can help negotiation practitioners be more effective. The book will be used in university courses on international negotiation and conflict resolution, and provide a useful resource for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, NGOs, donor organizations, and grant-giving organizations.

Bertram I. Spector has more than 40 years of experience conducting and directing research, training, and technical assistance programs internationally, specializing in the international negotiation and anti-corruption fields. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of an international peer-reviewed academic journal, International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice, since its inception in 1996. Dr. Spector is author of Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption: Challenges for Post-Conflict Societies (US Institute of Peace, 2011), and co-editor of Getting It Done: Post-Agreement Negotiation and International Regimes (US Institute of Peace, 2003), among many other books and journal articles.