I. William Zartman

Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority

This work uses 11 African case studies in its exploration of the phenomenon of collapsed states. The writers consider the causes of collapse; symptoms and early warning signs; and how the situation was met. They also assess the strengths and weaknesses of various responses, such as UN action.

Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars

As the threat of superpower confrontation diminishes in the post-cold war era, civil wars and their regional ramifications are emerging as the primary challenge to international peace and security. Notoriously difficult to resolve, these internal conflicts seem condemned to escalate with no end in sight. This book recognizes that internal dissidence is the legitimate result of the breakdown of normal politics and focuses on resolving conflict through negotiation rather than combat. Elusive Peace provides a revealing look at the nature of internal conflicts and explains why appropriate conditions for negotiation and useful solutions are so difficult to find. The authors offer a series of case studies of ongoing conflict in Angola, Mozambique, Eritrea, South Africa, Southern Sudan, Lebanon, Spain, Colombia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. They examine the characteristics of each confrontation, including past failed negotiations, and make suggestions for changes in negotiating strategies that could lead to a more successful outcome. The contributors, in addition to the editor, are Imtiaz Bokhari, Bilkent University, Ankara; Robert Clark, George Mason University; Marius Deeb and Marina Ottaway, Georgetown University; Mary Jane Deeb, American University; Francis Deng, Brookings; Daniel Druckman, National Academy of Sciences; Todd Eisenstadt, University of California, San Diego; Daniel Garcia, University of the Andes, Bogota; Justin Green, Villanova University; Carolyn Hartzell and Donald Rothchild, University of California, Davis; Ibrahim Msabaha, Center for Foreign Relations, Dar es-Salaam; and Howard Wriggins, Columbia University.

The Timing of Peace Initiatives:Hurting Stalemates and Ripe Moments

While most studies on peaceful settlement of disputes see the substance of the proposals for a solution as the key to a successful resolution of conflict, a growing focus of attention shows that a second and equally necessary key lies in the timing of efforts for resolution.1 Parties resolve their conflict only when they are ready to do so – when alternative, usually unilateral, means of achieving a satisfactory result are blocked and the parties feel that they are in an uncomfortable and costly predicament. At that ripe moment, they are more likely to grab on to proposals that usually have been in the air for a long time and that appear attractive only now.

Negotiation as a Joint Decision-Making Process

Negotiation is one of a limited number of decision-making modes whose characteristics, taken as assumptions, are not compatible with most of the theoretical work on negotiation to date. The concession/ convergence approach has problems of symmetry, determinism, and power, but above all fails to reflect the nature of negotiation as practiced. Negotiators begin by groping for a jointly agreeable formula that will serve as a referent, provide a notion of justice, and define a common perception on which implementing details can be based. Power makes the values fit together in the package and timing is important to making the formula stick. The article provides examples from cases and experiments are discussed, including the results of a new survey of UN ambassadors using miniscenarios. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the formula/detail approach are assessed.

Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict "Medicine"

This text identifies contributions of traditional mechanisms for conflict management in Africa and elsewhere. With African conflicts eluding efforts to be controlled, this work is guided by the question: can traditional methods yield insights and approaches that might help end the violence?

Rethinking the economics of war : the intersection of need, creed, and greed

Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed questions the adequacy of explaining todays internal armed conflicts purely in terms of economic factors and reestablishes the importance of identity and grievances in creating and sustaining such wars. This collection of essays responds to current works asserting that the income from natural resources is the end and not just a means for warring rebel groups. The study puts greed in its place and restores the importance of deprivation and discrimination as the primary causes of armed conflict within states. Countries studied include Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and Afghanistan.

Prenegotiation: Phases and Functions

After all these years, we still have trouble living with concepts. Unlike tangible realities, such as a dog, concepts have no clear beginnings and ends, no unambiguous middles, and not even a usefulness that is beyond debate. A dog which does not exist to the left of its nose or the right of its tail, is clearly distinguishable from a car or even a cat, and would require a name if it did not have one offers none of these problems. We may try to dodge the boundary problem and focus on the essential or functional nature of the concept, but that will only satisfy philosophers, who have less trouble with concepts than most of us anyhow, and not practitioners. A phase is a particularly troublesome form of concept because a time dimension is added to its other elusive qualities and because other relational questions are raised. Is a phase part of subsequent phases, for example, and is the sequence of phases a one-way street or can there be backtracking and even leapfrogging? None of these questions ever arises about the good old dog! Prenegotiation is such a troublesome phase concept. There is no doubt that there is something before negotiation, but it is less clear whether it is a prelude to or a part of negotiation, whether there is a difference in nature between these two, how sharp the boundaries are and how reversible the flows, or what the relation is to other contextual events such as crises and

Conflict and Resolution: Contest, Cost, and Change

Regional conflicts can be thought of in three different ways, each suggesting a different approach to their resolution. One is as a clash of conflicting unilateral solutions, which then require a formula for a joint or multilateral outcome satisfactory to both parties. A second is as a succession of opposing policies based on cost-benefit calculations, which then require a ripe moment—comprising specific components of mutually hurting stalemate, impending catastrophe, and a formula for a way out—for resolution. A third is an an event in a process of change, requiring the negotiation of a new regime to replace an old one that previously embodied certain expectations and behaviors. These different notions are illustrated with many examples of regional conflicts and their attempted—and sometimes successful—resolution.

Multilateral Negotiation and the Management of Complexity

A decade has passed since the boundaries of knowledge were pushed back through publication of International Multilateral Negotiation: Approaches to the Management of Complexity (Zartman 1994). In this collective work of the Processes of International (PIN) Group at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), distinguished social scientists from diverse fields applied a range of theories to one of the most complex negotiation types, the international multilateral conference. Coalition theory, decision theory, game theory, leadership theory, organizational theory, and small-group theory were each applied to two negotiations, the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the negotiations to establish the Single European Act in the European Community. The intent of this book was to extend theory and provide tools for analyzing the complexities of international multilateral negotiations while establishing a foundation for the study of negotiation complexity and its management. Managing complexity is a paradigm, not a theory. It is the context for theorizing, but more basically, a way of thinking about multilateral negotiations in order to achieve a better comprehension of the full process. The present thematic issue of International Negotiation begins from this point of departure.

Getting It Done: Post-Agreement Negotiation and International Regimes

From NAFTA to NATO, from the WTO to the WHO, a vast array of international regimes manages an astounding number of regional and global problems. Yet the dynamics of these enormously influential bodies are barely understood. Scholars have scrutinized international regimes, but that scrutiny has been narrowly focused on questions of regime formation and regime compliance. Remarkably little attention has been paid to the crucial question of how regimes sustain themselves and evolve. This pioneering work sets about correcting that neglect. As its title suggests, Getting It Done explores how international regimes accomplish their goals -- goals that constantly shift as problems change and the power of member-states shifts. In a series of conceptually bold opening chapters, the volume editors emphasize that successful evolution depends above all on a process of continuous negotiation -- domestic as well as international -- in which norms, principles, and rules are modified as circumstances and interests change. The second part of the volume takes this framework and applies it to four case studies, two regional, two global. Each case study presents the aims, achievements, and structure of a regime and demonstrates how it adjusts its course through negotiation. A final chapter draws both theoretical and practical lessons for the future.