International Negotiation And Mediation In Violent Conflict

This collection of essays situates the study and practice of international mediation and peaceful settlement of disputes within a changing global context. The book is organized around issues of concern to practitioners, including the broader regional, global, and institutional context of mediation and how this broader environment shapes the opportunities and prospects for successful mediation. A major theme is complexity, and how the complex contemporary context presents serious challenges to mediation. This environment describes a world where great-power rivalries and politics are coming back into play, and international and regional organizations are playing different roles and facing different kinds of constraints in the peaceful settlement of disputes. The first section discusses the changing international environment for conflict management and reflects on some of the challenges that this changing environment raises for addressing conflict. Part II focuses on the consequences of bringing new actors into third-party engagement and examines what may be harbingers for how we will attempt to resolve conflict in the future. The third section turns to the world of practice, and discusses mediation statecraft and how to employ it in this current international environment. The volume aims to situate the practice and study of mediation within this wider social and political context to better understand the opportunities and constraints of mediation in today’s world. The value of the book lies in its focus on complex and serious issues that challenge both mediators and scholars. This volume will be of much interest to students, practitioners, and policymakers in the area of international negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution and international relations.

Part I: Applied Theory. Recent advances in negotiation theory and application to skills training / by Daniel Druckman and Victor Robinson -- Adjusted winner theory: applications to the South China Sea / by Steven Brams -- Part II: Simulations. Computer-based simulation: Antarctic treaty and Falklands/Malvinas negotiations / by Jack Child -- Crisis negotiation environment project / by Jonathan Wilkenfeld and Sarit Kraus -- Strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention: a teaching simulation / by Marie Isabelle Chevrier -- Part III: Internal Conflicts. Negotiating an end in civil wars: general findings / by Roy Licklider -- Negotiating for peace in Liberia: conclusions and recommendations / by Richard Joseph -- Negotiating with "villains" / by Bertram Spector -- Conclusions: Bridging theory and practice -- Appendix: Theoretical aspects of adjusted winner theory.

Conflicts in the international system, both among and within states, bring death, destruction, and human misery. Understanding how third parties use mediation to encourage settlements and establish a durable peace among belligerents is vital for managing these conflicts. Among many features, this book empirically examines the history of post-World War II mediation efforts to: Chart the historical changes in the types of conflicts that mediation addresses and the links between different mediation efforts across time. Explore the roles played by providers of mediation in the international system - namely, individuals, states, and organizations - in managing violent conflicts. Gauge the influence of self-interest and altruism as motivating forces that determine which conflicts are mediated and which are ignored. Evaluate what we know about the willingness of parties in conflict to accept mediation, when and why it is most effective, and discuss the future challenges facing mediators in the contemporary world. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Oslo Accords and Good Friday Agreement to efforts to manage the civil wars in Burundi, Tajikistan, and Bosnia, this book is an indispensable guide to international mediation for students, practitioners, and general readers seeking to understand better how third parties can use mediation to deal with the globe’s trouble spots.

This book reinforces the foundation of a new field of studies and research in the intersection between social sciences and specifically between political science, international relations, diplomacy, psychotherapy, and social-cognitive psychology. It seeks to promote a coherent and comprehensive approach to international negotiation from a multidisciplinary viewpoint generating a longer term of studies, researches, and networking process that both respond to changes and differences in our societies and to the unprecedented demand and opportunities for international conflict prevention and resolution. There is a need to increase cooperation, coherence, and efficiency of international negotiation. It is necessary to focus our shared attention on new ways to better formulate integrated and sustainable negotiating strategies for conflict resolution. This book acquires innovative relevance in and will impact on the new context of international challenges which do not have a one-off solution that can be settled through a single target-oriented negotiation process. The book brings together leading scholars and researchers into the field from different disciplines, diplomats, politicians, senior officials, and even a Cardinal of the Holy See to give their contributions and make proposals on how best to optimize the use of negotiation and diplomacy structures, tools, and instruments. However, unlike most studies and researches on international negotiation, this book emphasizes processes, not simply outcomes or even tools but the way in which tools are and can be used to achieve better outcomes in international reality-based negotiation.

This book presents a conceptual and empirical analysis of the UN-led multiparty mediation in the Tajikistan conflict. Multiparty mediation has been a significant research topic of international conflict management since the 1990s, but in-depth case studies on the peacemaking dynamics of violent conflicts are rare, particularly in regard to third-party roles. This volume addresses that gap in the literature by examining the multiparty mediation of the Tajikistan conflict, a largely forgotten but notably successful case of UN-orchestrated peacemaking in the post-Cold War era. It argues that several interrelated factors contributed to the "success" of the Tajik multiparty mediation: Russia, Iran, and other major interveners shared a common interest, and reached a broad consensus on the terms of settlement; the UN was widely accepted as a lead coordinator by other mediators, and succeeded in constructively engaging with them; as a consequence, there arose positive interconnections between different third-party roles. The book presents an analytical framework for understanding the complex interplay of these factors, not only to evaluate the Tajik case but also to help clarify policy implications for multiparty mediation in other cases of violent conflict, particularly civil wars. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, civil wars, international mediation, the UN, Central Asian politics, and International Relations.

Includes: the art of negotiation in Congress, a model for negotiation and mediation, teaching the art and science of negotiation, the pre-negotiation phase, and domestic models of conflict resolution: are they relevant in the international conflict?, and much more. Extensive bibliography.

This edited volume builds on a core set of concepts developed by I. William Zartman to offer new insights into conflict management and African politics. Key concepts such as ripe moments, hurting stalemates, and collapsed states, are built upon in order to show how conflict resolution theory may be applied to contemporary challenges, particularly in Africa. The contributors explore means of pre-empting negotiations over bribery, improving outcomes in environmental negotiations, boosting the capacity of mediators to end violent conflicts, and finding equitable negotiated outcomes. Other issues dealt with in the book include the negotiation of relations with Europe, the role of culture in African conflict resolution, the means to enhance security in unstable regional environments, and the strategic role of the United States in mediating African conflicts. This book will be of much interest to students of international conflict management, peace/conflict studies, African politics and IR in general.

This new textbook introduces key mechanisms and issues in international conflict management and engages students with a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to mitigating, managing, and transforming international conflicts. The volume identifies key historical events and international agreements that have shaped and defined the field of international conflict management, as well as key dilemmas facing the field at this juncture. The first section provides an overview of key mechanisms for international conflict management, such as negotiation, mediation, nonviolent resistance, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, transitional justice, and reconciliation. The second section tackles important cross-cutting themes, such as technology, religion, the economy, refugees and migration, and the role of civil society, examining how these issues contribute to international conflicts and how they can be leveraged to help address such conflicts. Each chapter includes a brief historical overview of the evolution of the issue or mechanism, identifies key theoretical and practical debates, and includes case studies, discussion questions, website links, and suggested further reading for further study and engagement. By providing a mixture of theory and practical examples, this textbook provides students with the necessary background to navigate this interdisciplinary field. This volume will be of great interest to students of international conflict management, conflict resolution, peace studies, and international relations in general.