Center for Negotiation Analysis
The Center for Negotiation Analysis (CNA) is a not-for-profit research institute established in 1993 devoted to studying, training, and providing practical advisory support concerning negotiations, mediation, and other forms of conflict resolution at the national, regional and international levels.
The Center specializes in studying negotiation processes and translating them into practical, action-oriented training and recommendations for decision makers in government, business, civil society, and international organizations. The Center has conducted research studies, consulting assignments, assessments, field work, and training in Eastern and Western Europe, the Newly Independent States, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
In recent years, the Center has conducted research on negotiating peace agreements while confronting corruption in developing countries emerging from civil war, negotiating with terrorists, post-agreement negotiation in international regimes, assessing the negotiation readiness of countries, and negotiating in an insecure world. The Center has also sponsored several policy roundtables for practitioners and analysts to disseminate the findings of negotiation research. These sessions have been conducted in coordination with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria), the International Studies Association, the International Association for Conflict Management, and the Johns Hopkins University.
Since 1996, the Center has served as the Editorial Offices of International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice, published by Brill Nijhoff Publishers (Leiden).
Books from the Center
An Introduction to International Negotiation: Concepts, Processes and Research, authored by Bertram I. Spector (Routledge 2025), provides a solid mix of theory, research, and real-world cases that offers readers a comprehensive appreciation of the field and how it is put to use on a practical level. It will serve as an excellent basic text for university classes in international relations, peace studies, conflict resolution, and international negotiation. For more on this book, click here.
International Negotiation and Good Governance: A Researcher-Practitioner's Perspective, authored by Bertram I. Spector (Routledge 2024), investigates two critical political science domains: international negotiation processes and the establishment of good governance practices, using real-world examples. The author’s observations, analyses, and recommendations provide a unique blend of researcher and practitioner experiences that were implemented in conjunction with government authorities, businesses, the media, and citizen groups in over 40 countries. For more on this book, click here.
The Dynamics of International Negotiation: Essays on Theory and Practice, authored by Bertram I. Spector (Routledge 2023), examines the international negotiation field from the perspective of researchers and practical negotiators. The essays address a wide range of critical issues: the role of creativity and experimentation, psychological dynamics, incomplete agreements, engineering and reframing the context, decision support systems, engaging new actors, and expanding core values, among others. For more on this book, click here.
Curbing Corruption: Practical Strategies for Sustainable Change is a book authored by Bertram I. Spector (Routledge 2022). The book's argument is that past attempts to develop effective anti-corruption reform programs have fallen short. The problem is that these programs attempt to adjust laws and their enforcement at a state level, and do not target the principal drivers of corrupt behavior which are at the human and group level. Among several new approaches, the book examines the value of deconstructing a key dynamic of the corruption transaction - the give and take of negotiation - to reduce the opportunity for corrupt behaviors. For more on this book, click here.
Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption is another book authored by the Center's Executive Director, Bertram I. Spector, and published by the United States Institute of Peace Press. Spector argues that peace and economic recovery in post-conflict societies are more likely and more durable when good governance and anti-corruption reforms are included as central provisions in negotiated peace agreements and then implemented quickly, often with the support of international donor assistance. See the author discuss his book in the interview below.
New Books from the Center (click below for more information)
International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice
READ an article on THE RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE: The assertion by NGOs of their “right to negotiate” with authorities is increasing, not only when dealing on the national level, but at international negotiation fora as well. It suggests an expanding democratization of the negotiation field – broadening the types of stakeholders participating.
Over the years, the Center has received funding from the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation, Brill Academic Publishers, the National Defense University, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the United Nations, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria), the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Battelle Corporation/Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, and the European-American Center for Policy Analysis/RAND Corporation (the Netherlands), among others.
The Center for Negotiation Analysis is designated as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational institution by the US Internal Revenue Service.
