Tackling international negotiation

The connection between the bargaining and international negotiation research surfaced in the author's approach to skills training. In an attempt to bridge theory to practice, the author developed 16 thematic narratives that captured the body of research on bargaining. These narratives were used in four exercises that represented roles of international negotiators: analyst, strategist, performer, and designer. The analyst and strategist roles were implemented with case studies, while the performer role was enacted in a multilateral simulation. The designer task encouraged participants to use their creative juices in constructing an exercise that embodied several of the research themes. This task was also the basis for a line of research on concept learning most recently reported by Druckman and Ebner. A large variety of groups experienced the approach, including diplomats, lawyers, business executives, labor union members, teachers, and students in a variety of graduate programs.