French Negotiating Behavior

Even before it led opposition to the recent war on Iraq, France was considered the most difficult of the United States' major European allies. Each side tends to irritate the other, not least at the negotiating table, where Americans complain of French pretensions and arrogance, and the French fulminate against U.S. hegemonisme and egoisme. But, whether they like it or not, the two nations are going to have to deal with one another for a long time to come. Charles Cogan's timely and insightful study can't guarantee to make those encounters more fruitful, but it will help France's negotiating counterparts understand how and why French officials behave as they do. With impressive objectivity and authority, Cogan first explores the cultural and historical factors that have shaped the French approach and then dissects its key elements. Mixing rationalism and nationalism, rhetoric and brio, self-importance and embattled vulnerability, French negotiators often seem more interested in asserting their country's "universal" mission than in reaching agreement. Three recent case studies illustrate this distinctively French mélange. Yet agreement is by no means always elusive. Cogan offers practical suggestions for making negotiations more cooperative and productive--although he also emphasizes the long-term damage inflicted by the crisis over Iraq. Drawing on candid interviews with many of today's leading players on the French, American, British, and German sides, this engaging volume will inform and stimulate both seasoned practitioners and academics as well as students of France and the negotiating process. This book is the recipient of the Prix Ernest Lémonon from L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 2006

Pt. 1. International negotiations. -- Pt. 2. Negotiation techniques used around the world. -- Pt. 3. Negotiate right in any of 50 countries.

The first full-length work to analyze the closing phase of negotiations, identifying the negotiators' behavior patterns in the endgame.

Instead, it's based on logic, rigor, and tenacity, qualities that make negotiations challenging but potentially rewarding encounters. "Negotiations with Germans can be difficult," notes Smyser, "but careful preparation and informed understanding can produce good results, especially if one knows the kinds of mistakes to avoid."".

DIPLOMACY is one of the highest of the political arts. In a well-ordered commonwealth it would be held in the esteem due to a great public service in whose hands the safety of the people largely lies; and it would thus attract to its ranks its full share of national ability and energy which for the most part to-day passes into other professions. But the diplomatic service, at all times, and in almost all countries, has suffered from lack of public appreciation: though perhaps at no time has it had so many detractors as to-day. Its almost unparalleled unpopularity is due to a variety of causes, some of which are temporary and removable, while others must be permanent in human affairs, for they were found to operate in the days when the author of this little book shone in French diplomacy. The major cause is public neglect; but it is also due, in no small measure, to the prevalent confusion between[Pg vi] policy, which is the substance, and diplomacy proper, which is the process by which it is carried out. This confusion exists not only in the popular mind, but even in the writings of historians who might be expected to practise a better discernment. Policy is the concern of governments. Responsibility therefore belongs to the Secretary of State who directs policy and appoints the agents of it. But the constitutional doctrine of ministerial responsibility is not an unvarying reality. No one will maintain that Lord Cromer’s success in Egypt was due to the wisdom of Whitehall, or to anything but his own sterling qualities. Nor can a just judgment of our recent Balkan diplomacy fail to assign a heavy share of the blame to the incompetence of more than one ‘man on the spot.’ The truth is, that the whole system, of which, in their different measure, Downing Street and the embassies abroad are both responsible parts, is not abreast of the needs of the time, and will not be until Callières’s excellent maxims become the common practice of the service. These maxims are to be found in the little book of which a free translation is here presented. François de Callières treats diplomacy as the art[Pg vii] practised by the négotiateur—a most apt name for the diplomatist—in carrying out the instructions of statesmen and princes. The very choice of the word manière in his title shows that he conceives of diplomacy as the servant, not the author, of policy; and indeed his argument is not many pages old before he is heard insisting that it is ‘the agent of high policy.’ Observance of this distinction is the first condition of fruitful criticism. It is therefore worth while, at the outset, to clear away the obscurity and confusion which surround the subject, and thus, in some measure, to relieve both diplomacy in general and the individual diplomatist in particular from the burden of irrelevant and unjust criticism..

Provides a profile of each national negotiating style for China, the Soviet Union, Japan, France, Egypt and Mexico. Reviews each nation's historical and institutional setting, the characteristics of its political culture, the style of the negotiators themselves, and national strategies and tactics. Suggests bargaining guidelines for U.S. negotiators.

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