Negotiating a Complex World - Softcover

Starkey, Brigid; Boyer, Mark A.; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0847690458 ISBN 13: 9780847690459

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999

Synopsis

Negotiating a Complex World introduces undergraduate students of International Relations to the high stakes world of international negotiation. The book uses the analogy of a board game as an organizing technique and includes many real-world cases and examples to illustrate important concepts and relationships. The book highlights the intensity of crisis situations for negotiators, the role of culture in communication, and the impact of domestic-level politics on international negotiations. The book provides students with the tools they need to analyze why some negotiations are ultimately successful, while others end in failure. This innovative text also provides exercises and learning approaches to enable students to understand the complexity of negotiation by engaging in aspects of the diplomatic process themselves.

About this title

About the Author:

Brigid Starkey teaches political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Mark A. Boyer is professor and department head of political science at the University of Connecticut. Jonathan Wilkenfeld is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Review:

This engaging book moves us to a new era of international relations characterized by global diplomacy, nonstate actors, and complex, inter-linked issues. Using interesting case examples, the authors bring concepts to life for the practitioner, scholar, and general reader alike. Capturing key ideas in the contemporary literature on negotiation, they show how the changing international context interacts with specific negotiating situations in shaping processes and producing outcomes. The authors’ use of a board game metaphor for negotiating processes and strategies enables the reader to appreciate the complexity and uncertainty of negotiation without being mired in technical details. Useful chapter summaries, glossaries, web sites, and references further enhance the book’s value. (Druckman, Daniel)

Negotiating a Complex World is more than merely ‘an introduction to international negotiation.’ Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld have presented a sophisticated framework for understanding international negotiation that will be a valuable tool for students, scholars, and policy makers alike. The authors’ Afterword on virtual diplomacy is a timely addition that should be required reading for students and practitioners of the art of diplomacy in the 21st century. (Linda Brady)

Unique . . . is the emphasis placed on simulations and 'virtual diplomacy,' including the listing of myriad Web sites devoted to negotiation. A well-designed book with many references to contemporary examples of negotiation, it is more appropriate to the beginner than the expert. The bibliography is quite good. (Choice)

A welcome addition to the large and growing literature on negotiation. The authors have had a long association with the International Communication and Negotiation Simulation Project (ICONS) at the University of Maryland, and a strong desire to develop an approach to the study of negotiation that is based on simulation exercises, utilizing sophisticated network techniques. Their short book is both substantially rich and a valuable tool for students and policy-makers alike. (International Affairs)

Despite the importance of international negotiation there are remarkably few texts that can unconditionally be recommended for international relations courses. Professors Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld are to be congratulated for producing an authoritative introduction to international negotiation that is at once clear, interesting, innovative, and enjoyable. The authors have produced an excellent, user-friendly text for students that brilliantly succeeds in getting across key features of the negotiating process. They cover the major concepts, approaches, and theories in the field in a concise and highly readable way. Their synthesis of case study and theoretical analysis is just what is called for. What particularly impressed me was the ability of the authors to explain the context and mechanics of international negotiation while at the same time placing negotiation exactly where it should be—at the heart of international relations. As well as enthusiastically endorsing the adoption of this fine study as an introduction to international negotiation, I would also wish to recommend it most highly as an essential component of general courses on diplomacy and foreign policy. (Raymond Cohen)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0847690458
• ISBN 13: 9780847690459
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160