Improvisation and Negotiation: Expecting the Unexpected

Negotiators must improvise. As the negotiations process unfolds, they work with new information, continually making decisions along the way to achieve favorable results. Skilled improvisational jazz musicians and actors perform in similar ways: they repeatedly practice song chord progressions and notes or scene guidelines before a performance; then, during the performance, they work with the information or the music they hear in order to react and respond, making decisions along the way to produce dazzling music or a compelling scene. In this article, two experts in negotiation, a jazz-improvisation scholar, a former member of an improvisational theater troupe, and a psychotherapist versed in therapeutic improvisational techniques explore the improvisational nature of negotiation.
Several aspects of negotiation are similar to improvisation. Both negotiators and improvisational performers need to have a similar mind-set to be successful, both need to recognize and/or change that mind-set at times, and both must craft creative solutions. But there are some significant differences between improvisational performance and negotiation practice, which this article also notes. For example, personal charisma ("star quality") is a common attribute of successful performers, but not something negotiators may always rely on. Similarly, improvisational artists usually work as a team, while a negotiator is often on his or her own. Nonetheless, the incorporation of improvisation techniques into the negotiation skills repertoire holds great promise for practicing negotiators and is a worthy topic of future negotiation research and teaching.     

Chronicling the Complexification of Negotiation Theory and Practice

The essay reviews the content of twenty-five years of Negotiation Journal , identifying themes and issues explored on its pages in the past, the current issues challenging the field's scholars and practitioners, and the issues likely to confront us in the future. It argues that while we in the field hoped for simple, elegant, and universal theories of negotiation and conflict resolution, the last twenty-five years have demonstrated the increasing complexification of negotiation theory and practice, from increased numbers of parties and issues, and dilemmas of intertemporal commitments, ethics, accountability, and relationships of private action to public responsibility.     

Book review

Book reviews in this article:
The Many Ways of Mediation: The Transformation of Traditions, Ideologies, Paradigms, and Practices Carrie Menkel-Meadow .     

Correspondences and Comparisons in International and Domestic Conflict Resolution

The eclectic field of conflict resolution is characterized by a constant interplay between practice and theory (to say nothing about varying interpretations of what practice and theory actually are or should be). The author raises a number of questions about how to develop and test theory; the significant role of context in theory generation; and a variety of themes or issues that can be explored to provide scholarly synthesis as well as guidance for the practitioner, in both domestic and international conflict situations.     

The Next Generation: Creating New Peace Processes in the Middle East

This essay describes how Israeli students in a course on mediation and consensus building taught in an Israeli university law department by an American law professor and an Israeli instructor analyzed and studied the conflict in the Middle East. It describes the suggestions they made for process design for the next stages of whatever peace process might emerge for the region. In light of the students' suggestions, the authors present some ideas as to how different approaches to reconciliation and peace might be used, managed, and coordinated.