Coping with International Conflict

Roger Fisher, Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Elizabeth Kopelman-Borgwardt, and Brian Ganson

Prentiss Hall 1996 (Paperback)

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Description:

This text combines the clear, concise, and proven principles and practice of conflict management from Fisher's bestselling Getting to Yes with the newest problem-solving approaches to international relations. Many of the concepts grew out of materials Fisher and his colleagues use in their international consulting work to teach problem-solving and conflict management skills to diplomats and heads of state involved in contentious international disputes.

The authors introduce basic components of conflict resolution theory -- understanding partisan perceptions, analyzing the structure of negotiations, framing requests and demands -- and provide exercises, charts, and checklists to highlight key points. Anecdotes, examples, and historic case studies of conflict areas such as the West Bank and Vietnam show theory in practice and demonstrate the use of conflict-resolution tools.

As a test of readers' newly acquired negotiation skills, the authors set up a problem-solving process in which readers select a real-world problem and write an "Action Memorandum" -- a proposal to be sent to a real decisionmaker.
Instructors will find this book to be a suitable text and an invaluable resource -- it provides a variety of formats in which to learn and apply conflict-management theory, as well as a variety of opportunities to practice negotiation techniques in the fascinating arena of international conflict management.