Book Review of "An Introduction to International Negotiation"
Book Review: “An Introduction to International Negotiation”
by Bertram Spector…
and the Challenges of Teaching International Negotiation
by Jeffrey Helsing
The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
George Mason University, Arlington, VA (USA)
Published in International Negotiation, Vol. 31, no. 1 (2026)
Bertram Spector’s new textbook An Introduction to International Negotiation is a welcome addition to the teaching of international negotiations. While interesting research and scholarship has emerged around negotiations in many different contexts, there are almost no recent works that have synthesized new research or new cases into theory building or wider lessons about the state of international negotiations in today’s world. Because of this challenge, or in addition to it, teaching international negotiation becomes rather ad hoc. Spector’s textbook is a useful, and hopefully not the only, attempt to look at international negotiation at a time when the global system and international relations are changing dramatically. It focuses on priorities and approaches that introduce students to a relevant and rigorous understanding of international negotiation.
The Professional Negotiator and the Student of Negotiations
As a teacher of negotiation to both graduates and undergraduates for the past four years, I find most students are primarily interested in the development of skills and tools and, in some cases, the application of theory to practice. This essay will focus both on Spector’s new classroom text and on the teaching of international negotiation. How can international negotiations be taught in effective and engaging ways that highlight what distinguishes international negotiations from other types of negotiations, while also drawing on lessons from the larger body of work on negotiation skills and strategies? While this book is a good compilation or synthesis of what is already known, it presents international negotiation through the lens of collective bargaining, either bilaterally or multilaterally. Such negotiations happen on an international stage and the nature of the international system and the forces at play on that stage greatly influence the interaction or the negotiations between those actors. This is a collective bargaining situation in which the negotiators represent states, groups of states or non-state actors. That is different than interpersonal bargaining in which individuals are engaged in a conflictual relationship (Bercovitch & Jackson 2009: 23-31). In many ways, the two types of bargaining are intertwined, but Spector’s focus in this book is the former. Nevertheless, negotiation skills need to be learned by those—whom Spector refers to as “professional negotiators”—who represent others. The challenge for the teacher of international negotiation, therefore, is how to ensure both relevance and learning for the student who does not aspire to be a professional negotiator but often finds herself or himself negotiating in an international context.
Spector’s challenge is: how can one summarize the field or the discipline of international negotiations in a single text? Few have done this in the past twenty years.[1] Underlying this question is an even more basic one: how should we teach international negotiations in today’s complex and evolving world—one in which conflict is on the rise, the international system is weakened, and diplomacy is on the decline. We are also witnessing the demise of conflict resolution programs and development agencies and the minimization of international aid. This book frames negotiations within the international system and the way international relations shape international negotiation. The strength of the book lies in its analysis and explanations for primarily multilateral negotiation fora and multilateral engagement and processes, while also acknowledging the complexity and comprehensiveness of the process, given the changing landscape. It is important for the student of international negotiation as well as the professional negotiator to explore both the possibilities and challenges of negotiation tools and skills in the international context: “Their training in how to prepare for and conduct negotiations can vary widely and can be strongly influenced by cultural trends, subjective preferences, personality differences, and past personal experiences” (Spector 2025: 196).
The Changing Landscape
Part 1, which focuses on Actors, Structures, Strategies, Outcomes, is not significantly different than other texts. While paying much less attention to the social-psychological approach in his analysis of negotiations at the very end Spector suggests that “Adding a psychological track in negotiator training…can open the door for greater empathy and understanding that can yield better resolutions” (Spector 2025: 197). What distinguishes this book from others is the second part on “Negotiating Subprocesses” in which the book drills down into process. Here the student begins to understand the importance of process in how the negotiator needs to apply his/her craft. As Spector notes, attention to the process is often critical because “various problems in the negotiation process itself can make the search for a common agreement difficult”(Spector 2025: 84). Spector notes up front that the “negotiation system” is a “key international relations factor.” Thus, the book is purposely about negotiation processes in international and intranational/civil conflict settings as a key component of a broader global system. It is much less about how to negotiate in an international context and much more about how the strategy, approach, or negotiation tools and skills one might bring to bear on resolving a conflict is influenced by the international context (primarily global, but with a nod to national and local).
To understand those conflict settings, one must understand the international system and how relations between states can and do shape the negotiations themselves. In today’s world, within that global setting, it is important to explore how and in what ways trust-building activities such as communications and dialogue are effective in promoting cooperative solutions. For example, how can differences between a communications process and a risk management process shape such negotiations and the different possible outcomes? (Hampson, Crocker & Aall 2007: 40). Choices about such approaches would lead to alternative assessments about appropriate strategies, risk, comparative advantage, and the sources of leverage in bargaining relationships. The transformation of the international system from the Cold War period to the post-Cold War period also had other important consequences. At least initially, the United Nations suddenly assumed greater relevance as the great powers looked to international institutions. That included regional and sub-regional organization playing a greater role in conflict management processes, including the mediation and negotiation of international disputes as well as expanded roles in conflict management in their own neighborhoods, sometimes with the support and backing of the international community.
The lens through which to learn about international negotiations is Spector’s focus on international negotiation processes at both the international and regional levels that encompass multi-party and multi-issue negotiations that predominantly occur within settings that are more formal and rule-bound. As Spector notes from the outset, “Ultimately, international negotiation plays an essential role in the realm of international relations: to end or prevent interstate conflicts and promote interstate cooperation to achieve mutual goals” (Spector 2025: 1). And, because the nature of the international system shapes the stage upon which international negotiations are acted out, exploring negotiation arenas is a means to understand international relations and the international system.
Spector dives into “Negotiating subprocesses,” the key attributes of international negotiation that distinguish it from other types of negotiations. There are four important subprocesses: Getting to the Table; At the Table; Plan of Action for Implementing the Agreement; and Negotiating Post-agreement. Spector has addressed each of these topics in earlier journal articles, but it is useful to bring these processes together in one place, particularly as each is fleshed out via a fairly rich case study.
How we teach about International Negotiations
At its core, international negotiations come down to substance and process, complemented also by outcome and implementation of that outcome. The design of the negotiation maximizes our chances of succeeding and ultimately getting an agreement that people can commit to and carry out. Students ask “what makes a good negotiator?” Courses on international negotiation should explore the tools of communication, persuasion, empathy or compassion, creating trust, ethics and relationship building. Students should also learn to develop the flexibility to adjust tactics and strategies or design a process dependent on variables such as context, the stakes involved, the shadow of the future or assessing needs, capabilities and relationships of the other players/actors, and so on.
In his discussion about the importance of readiness and ripeness, Spector raises a key point about what capacity is and necessary skills a negotiator must have:
Motivation and perception are not sufficient to ensure the decision to negotiate; the parties must possess a degree of political skill, resources, and power – some reasonable level of capacity – if negotiations are to be entered into and conducted effectively….The parties must…be able to establish their interests and develop strategies, and possess persuasive and tactical skills. [italics added] But in a developing or post-conflict society, civil organizations are often underdeveloped or nonexistent. [italics added] Institutions and societal rules and procedures may have to be reestablished. Reconciliation, reconstruction, and institution-building require active negotiation among all stakeholders who have interests, motivation, and a capacity to sit and react at the bargaining table. Power and resource asymmetry between the disputants will likely result in a failure to enter into talks and a possible stalemate…. (Spector 2025: 112-113).
This is where professional negotiation and Track II and Track III negotiations, along with informal peacebuilding can come together in the classroom. This is important because most graduates of programs that incorporate international negotiation into the curriculum will not become international diplomats but more likely be called upon to deal with reconstruction, reconciliation and institution-building, particularly at the interpersonal, organizational, and community level. The implications of Spector’s book, particularly his emphasis on skills and process, are that courses on international negotiation should be focused on such tools. And, programs that focus on conflict resolution, peacebuilding, international relations, development, international security, and policy planning, should incorporate more classes on teaching skills and tools along with understanding the larger context of international relations, economics or security. That not only serves students well as practitioners, but also responds to what students themselves hope to learn. Because practice, including internships and experiential learning abroad, is increasingly viewed as critical to education, there must be more emphasis on practical skills, including reflective practice and what it means to be an outside intervenor.
Today’s students enjoy studying international negotiations as an intercultural process and are intrigued by the challenges of effective persuasion, discerning the interests and needs of others, and the psychology of conflict and cooperation. Some aspire to be policymakers; some aspire to be scholars and teachers; most aspire to be practitioners and see themselves negotiating in many different contexts. That is true even for some PhD students. A doctoral student of mine noted how much he enjoyed skills-focused classes because they enabled him to understand better how to apply theory to practice. He wants to ensure his research and scholarship contribute to how conflicts are resolved on the ground, in an actual community. A skills-based course provides a wide variety of ways to test many of the ideas that emerge in texts such as Spector’s.
Skills-building courses are beneficial because students have an opportunity to explore possibilities. The class becomes a laboratory to try different approaches. The quest is not to find the right answer or the correct negotiation tactic or strategy, but to understand better what questions to ask and think through the potential outcomes of one strategy, different negotiating styles, or a particular process or structure, all within a unique context. The classroom as laboratory provides a space to explore unintended consequences that might emerge. Could such negative outcomes have been prevented? Students can explore the tactics and strategies of negotiation that are most effective in reaching a sustainable agreement while meeting the minimal needs of the parties while also reinforcing Spector’s analysis of how negotiations can be structured in ways that improve the prospects for success. That can be done via one-on-one engagement or as a large multi-level peace process that engages an entire class.[2] If we elevate the importance of skills, then students will see the importance of understanding context, and do the necessary preparatory or pre-negotiation work that increases the likelihood of positive and sustainable agreements. Without that, the subprocesses that Spector emphasizes will be much less relevant and effective.
A negotiation is a process by which each party to a conflict works to maximize its interests and objectives while also expanding mutual cooperation. But how do they get there and how can we expand a conflict resolution or peacebuilding lens? At its core, negotiations are repeated communication that consists of ongoing exchanges of information, evaluation, and decisions. Why is it important to understand the distinction between interest-based negotiations and distributive bargaining? How might a conflict transformation approach inform or influence international negotiations, and how can an elicitive approach to conflict resolution inform negotiating strategies and process? How does the nature of a domestic regime and the political and social relationships within that society influence how parties in conflict engage with each other? How do culture and religion fit in?
The field has evolved considerably since Fred Iklé in 1964 concluded that "Above all, [the Compleat Negotiator] must maintain the will to win" (Iklé 1964: 254). For today’s student, “winning” results from a negotiation that leads to mutual gains and implementable and sustainable agreements. For many, their first introduction to negotiations comes from Roger Fisher and William Ury’s Getting to Yes, a book that remains a basic text for introductory courses on negotiations. Initially, most respond positively. The primary thesis (distinguishing positions from interests) is simple and forms the basis of “interest-based negotiations.” But most students then begin to ask, “Is that it?” or “Is that enough?” It all seems too simple. When Fisher and Ury use the classic example of a conflict over an orange and a mutually beneficial outcome arises so that one sister gets the flesh of the orange and the other the peel, students begin to push back by noting that the value of the orange may be more than a commodity to be eaten in one form or another. The need for the orange may be more basic, even emotional or rooted in a sacred tradition. If one viewed the orange as something to be eaten while the other (or even both) saw it as a sacred object in which her identity was wrapped up, and could not be divided or shared, each may have different, and likely incompatible, views of the orange (Docherty 2005: 61). Thus, the student begins to think beyond the interest and explore how the process can help bring out such distinctions and perceptions.
Books on negotiation are not lacking. Negotiations are at the core of conflict resolution; it is the most fundamental strategy or skill in addressing conflict. I start off my undergraduate course by having students read both Getting to Yes and then Christopher Voss’ Never Split the Difference and his counterintuitive point that “No” is the most important word for a negotiator. For the students, starting with “no” helps them understand the parameters of where change might be possible and begins a process of exploration and give-and-take by which the negotiators may be able to get to “yes.” Initially, in the classroom, or the training, it is critical to see negotiation as a tool with many different applications that depend on the nature of the stakes and the context. So why focus on international negotiation; how does “international” negotiation differ from other types of negotiations? In short, what Spector emphasizes is that the international stage provides a specific and overarching super-context in which the conflicts to be negotiated—at all levels—are influenced to a lesser or great degree by that international context. To be sure, a conflict is also influenced by history, relationships, perceptions, previous interactions of the parties, local factors, and everyday needs and interests, so focusing on the international stage is not a sufficient focus of international negotiation but, as Spector illustrates, is necessary.
And here is where Spector comes back to the importance of teaching and training by noting:
Negotiators and their staffs need…the analytical resources and skills to diagnose the situation, evaluate the cost-benefit of their own strategy options, assess the impact of other party strategies, and weigh the efficacy of alternative negotiated outcomes…. delegations [often] arrive at complicated multilateral negotiations having performed minimal assessments of their own interests and positions, let alone that of other key nations and coalitions. In addition, negotiators lack the tools and techniques for effective joint problem-solving that have been developed in the management sciences and are being widely used in industry. International negotiation has clearly not entered the modern information era (Spector 2025: 72).
Thus, he makes the case for an expansion of how international negotiation is taught and for new tools that need to be incorporated into the toolbox.
The Need to synthesize international negotiation practice
The book mostly stays focused on one level of analysis: the international system. But international negotiation scholarship needs to expand its lenses and levels of analysis, particularly how negotiation skills and tools as well as tactics and strategies play out at sub-national and community levels. Most peacebuilding practitioners will find themselves working at the community level—their own or as a third-party intervenor. Thus, understanding context is critical; as is working across cultures. Many of the most interesting new areas of scholarship have been case-based, particularly around new zones of conflict (environment; economic cooperation and trade; healthcare; anti-corruption; humanitarian and disaster relief; shrinking civic space; gray-zone conflicts and cyber warfare; illiberal authoritarian regimes) and different levels of analysis, particularly the weakening of state institutions and governance and community-based peacebuilding, or the intractability of an existential conflict.
Negotiations within a peace process framework have become much more inclusive, but it is not completely clear whether that requires a different or additional set of negotiation skills or negotiation strategies. One area that this book covers in a meaningful way is the focus on inclusive negotiations and the value of focusing on the facilitation of a local negotiation process. As Spector notes, inclusion is not a panacea and inclusion, and democratic processes themselves, can be messy. Inclusion does not guarantee success and often increases the number of irreconcilable interests that emerge. But exclusion is worse. And, with wider inclusion, with more and more stakeholders engaged in a peace process, does the sequencing change? How does a greater emphasis on “everyday peace indicators” fit within the broad context of international negotiations? At the same time, artificial intelligence is transforming communications, enabling access to much greater amounts of data, including everyday peace indicators, and real-time reporting of conditions on the ground, while also synthesizing large amounts of information at incredible speeds. We need to explore how to prepare students for these technical changes. More conflict resolution and international relations programs are increasingly adding data analysis and information management to the curriculum. We also need to prepare students to face ethical dilemmas, such as whether or when negotiating the halt to killing may outweigh the importance of a just solution, at least in the short term. Spector implies that new thinking (and, by extension, new teaching and training) is needed given the changing nature of conflict. We need to prepare students for negotiations when things get messy and an unstable environment alters the negotiation process, including when traditional institutions and structures that support negotiations or the implementation of a peace agreement are weak, fragile, broken or missing.
Spector notes, “…negotiating a longer-term solution – a real peace – that rights the injustices of the past may yield a more stable and long-lasting settlement, but requires more time during which more lives may be lost” (Spector 2025: 49). This is particularly relevant to the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza and this important point underlies much of the current analysis of international negotiation. But what negotiation strategies, tactics, tools are more or less likely to lead to a more stable and long-lasting settlement during which fewer lives are lost? While much of his discussion of the situation in Gaza is speculative, simulating negotiations can be illuminating, particularly in a comprehensive way that layers in many dimensions of the conflict. Understanding the combination of historical, psychological, and political factors combined with timing, ripeness, leadership, process, sequencing, secrecy, communications, domestic politics, and readiness all contribute to the negotiations. Those interlocking elements are what are critical for the student of negotiations to understand. It is why a useful negotiation simulation requires so much preparation and advanced reading. It is also why the best negotiators work hard to understand the context and do so by gaining access to unfiltered information and being open to different perspectives or even different definitions of the conflict itself.
Everyone wants to be the architect of a grand plan, but the work can be and must be done at different levels, including the community level, the arena where most students and practitioners will find themselves and can make a difference. Track II discussions and ideas filtered up into the Oslo process between Israelis and Palestinians. Many of the key tenets of the 2014 Philippine-MILF peace agreement were revived and improved from different tracks of the failed peace process a decade earlier. As Spector notes, this is where readiness, a willingness to negotiate, and the capacity to negotiate and act and be able to implement an agreement if one is arrived at, matter. The lack of capacity undermines even a motivated party and opportunities to negotiate because the time seems ripe, usually out of a fear that negotiations will lead to a worse or exploitative situation because the party has little leverage enabling it to stand firm in pursuit of its interests. By helping to create a facilitated process that help parties prepare and assess possibilities and options is where a third-party mediator can be effective. Spector encourages the teaching, training, and practice of assessing likely scenarios, effective decision-making and understanding consequences, adaptive leadership, feedback loops, and decision analytic methodologies to explore the implications of future and alternative scenarios. He strongly encourages the use of “structured policy exercises [that] seek to identify key issues, uncover problem areas, define opportunities for important breakthroughs, and generate alternate solution paths, evaluate options, and project future implications” (Spector 2025: 79-80).
Ultimately, Spector provides a framework by which we can more systematically analyze international negotiation as an important and unique type of negotiation. Essentially, the book’s contribution is the way in which it heightens awareness for students about how they might focus on international negotiations at a macro level while being introduced to the skills and tools of negotiation processes and subprocesses. That said, so many of the resources, foundational materials as it were, are decades old. The book’s coverage of international negotiations adds to our understanding of the topic and discusses how the growing weakening of the liberal global system and the erosion of democratic institutions and processes impacts international negotiations.
Spector leaves the reader with a final challenge: as the world becomes less predictable and global dynamics are turned upside down, negotiation processes become weaker and less stabilizing. It will be critical, therefore, to “turn to the negotiation process to adapt and modify existing interstate agreements and relations.” We need predictable and effective international negotiation processes now more than ever to provide the means to strengthen bonds and understanding among international actors. Spector warns that “With national interests and power relationships among states changing drastically, existing agreements may fall apart and negotiations leading to future agreements may not be feasible given the new environment” (Spector 2025: 187). Yet, international negotiations provide opportunities to remain engaged and obtain future agreements that could reset global interaction: “There can be three levels of negotiated adjustment – from renewing, to reframing, to replacing agreements through negotiation – all depending upon the nature and extent of such evolutionary changes.” (Spector 2025: 185) Ultimately, he reiterates I. William Zartman’s recent observation that researchers “must examine the utility of negotiation processes through various levels of conflict and analyze how conflict resolution and management approaches might be able to reestablish their capacities in a future system of international relations norms and institutions” (Spector 2025: 191). And the teaching of international negotiation must continue to stress and train to what might work and what might not work in different conflict situations, from the global context to the community and everyday contexts.
References
Bercovitch, Jacob & Richard Jackson (2009). Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-First Century: Principles, Methods, and Approaches. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Docherty, Jayne (2005). The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.
Hampson, Fen Osler, Chester A. Crocker, and Pamela R. Aall (2007). “Negotiation and International Conflict,” in Charles Webel and Johan Galtung, editors, Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies. London: Routledge.
Iklé, Fred (1964). How Negotiations Negotiate. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Spector, Bertram (2025). An Introduction to International Negotiation. New York, NY: Routledge.
Notes
[1] For example, the 4th edition of international Negotiations in a Complex World (Starkey, Boyer and Wilkenfeld) was published 10 years ago. International Negotiation: Processes and Strategies by Ho-Won Jeong came out in 2016 and International Negotiation: A Process of Relational Governance for International Common Interest by Evangelos Raftopoulos in 2019 provides an international law perspective. International Negotiation and Mediation in Violent Conflict: The Changing Context of Peacemaking written by Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall in 2018 is an excellent attempt to situate peacemaking within the changing global context but is much more relevant for its analysis of mediation than negotiation. Bertram Spector himself published last year a book on International Negotiation and Good Governance: A Researcher-Practitioner’s Perspective that adds “good governance” as an interesting and vital factor in peacebuilding.
[2] Spector’s “The Camp Game” simulation at the end of his book is an excellent learning tool.
