Staff

Affiliated Faculty

The goals of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project (HNRP) are:

1. to strengthen the theoretical underpinnings and empirical scholarship related to negotiation and dispute resolution;
2. to develop practical tools that translate the theory of dispute resolution into practical processes for parties engaged in conflict;
3. to develop the teaching pedagogy and materials needed to prepare a new generation of lawyers in a problem-solving approach to the legal profession;
4. to encourage the development of a new generation of scholars concerned with research in negotiation and dispute resolution.

Below is a brief summary of some of HNRP's new and ongoing work:

Negotiating Ethnic Conflict

During the 2006 – 2007 academic year, Professor Robert Mnookin, HNRP Director, was on a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University where he worked on two projects relating to dispute resolution.

Professor Mnookin continued work he had begun relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This work has argued that internal “behind the table” conflicts are the primary barriers to a negotiated two state solution. In 2006 he also began studying the internal conflict within Belgium between the Dutch speaking Flemish community and the French speaking Walloons. Building on these two strands of work, Mnookin asked why some ethnic conflicts are violent and others are not. This led to an article published in the Winter 2007 issue of Daedalus comparing and contrasting these conflicts.

Bargaining with the Devil

During the second half of his fellowship, Professor Mnookin began a new book project: Bargaining with the Devil: What to Do When the Stakes Are High and the Other Side Seems Evil.  By “devil” is meant an enemy who may have hurt you in the past or appears willing to profoundly harm you in the future: someone you do not trust, or someone you see as evil, whose values and stated interests are profoundly different. The devil in this sense may be your nation’s enemy, a business competitor, or even a family member.

In this work Mnookin will argue that often, but not always, you should decide to bargain even with the devil. The challenge is in making wise decisions. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, he exposes the emotional, psychological, and political traps that commonly distort people’s thinking when a disputant perceives the other side to be evil. He offers a framework to think through the benefits and costs of alternative courses of action, and then shows how that framework can be used to analyze a broad range of real world disputes.

Israeli Settlements Project

The Israeli Settlements Project is a research program dedicated to establishing a long-term dialogue process with respect to the future of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

In October 2004, HNRP co-hosted, along with the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution the University of Nevada - Las Vegas, a major academic conference on the question of the West Bank and Gaza Settlements. Organized into six thematic panels, the conference brought together prominent academics, policymakers, and public intellectuals to address questions relating to settler relocation from a variety of academic perspectives: historical, philosophical, religious, psychological, economic, political and legal. The participants included Israelis, Palestinians, as well as scholars from North America and Europe. The proceedings from the conference were published in the April 2005 issue of Negotiation Journal.

In addition, a webcast of the entire conference, including remarks by Professor Mnookin and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, can be found at:

http://www.pon.harvard.edu/news/2004/conference_settlers.php3

As part of HNRP's work on the Israeli Settlements Project, Professor Mnookin appeared as a guest on the NPR Radio Program On Point on November 11, 2004, and Ehud Eiran appeared as a guest on the same program on May 3, 2005. Webcasts of both of their appearances are available at the websites below:

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2004/11/20041111_a_main.asp
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050309_b_main.asp

Workshops and Course Offerings

HNRP has primary responsibility for Harvard Law School's Winter and Spring Negotiation Workshops. Each year, Professor Robert Mnookin leads a teaching team of twelve for the Winter Negotiation Workshop and Professor Robert Bordone leads a teaching team of seven for the Spring Negotiation Workshop.

As part of this teaching program, Mnookin and Clinical Professor Robert Bordone recruit outstanding law students to serve as teaching assistants in the courses. We view the use of teaching assistants in our program as an integral part of our course's and the Law School's negotiation teaching program. In preparation for the courses, each of the teaching assistants participated in a full weekend of intensive training provided by Bordone. This training focused on teaching pedagogy, in-class facilitation skills, and substantive expertise required for teaching negotiation in a law school setting. Teaching assistants work with Bordone throughout the year to receive feedback and guidance on how to prepare lesson plans, execute case discussions, and review systematically to improve. Our hope is that this program will encourage more of our students to consider seriously a career in law teaching, especially in the area of alternative dispute resolution.

Selected Publications

Books

Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes, by Robert H. Mnookin, Scott R. Peppet, & Andrew Tulumello (Harvard University Press, 2000).

Negotiating on Behalf of Others: Advice to Lawyers, Business Executives, Sports Agents, Diplomats, and Everybody Else, Ed. Robert H. Mnookin, Lawrence E. Susskind with Pacey Foster (Sage Publications, 1999).

Barriers to Conflict Resolution, Ed. Kenneth Arrow, Robert H. Mnookin, Lee Ross, Amos Tversky, and Robert Wilson (PON Books, 1999).

Selected articles

“Ethnic Conflicts: Flemings and Walloons, Palestinians and Israelis." Daedalus (136:1), Winter 2007, p. 103-119 (2007).

“Bye bye Belgium?" (with A. Verbeke) Op Ed in International Herald Tribune, Dec. 20, 2006.

"Barriers to Progress at the Negotiation Table: Internal Conflicts among Israelis and among Palestinians" By Robert H. Mnookin and Ehud Eiran, (Nevada Law Journal 2006).

“Discord ‘Behind the Table’: The Internal Conflict Among Israeli Jews Concerning the Future of Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza,” (with Ehud Eiran) Journal of Dispute Resolution, University of Missouri-Columbia (2005).

"What We Have Learned About Teaching Multiparty Negotiation" by Lawrence Susskind, Robert Mnookin, Lukasz Rozdeiczer, and Boyd Fuller. 21 Negotiation Journal (2005).

"Early Intervention: How to Minimize the Cost of Conflict" by Frank E.A. Sander and Robert C. Bordone. NEGOTIATION, Vol. 8, No. 3, 4 (2005).

"The Internal Israeli Conflict: The Past, Present, and Future of the Jewish West Bank and Gaza Settlements" by Robert H. Mnookin. 21 Negotiation Journal 165 (2005).

"Israeli Settlement Activity in the West Bank and Gaze: A Brief History" by Karen Tenenbaum and Ehud Eiran. 21 Negotiation Journal 171 (2005).

"When Not to Negotiate: A Negotiation Imperialist Reflects on Appropriate Limits" by Robert H. Mnookin. 74 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1077 (2003).

"Strategic Barriers to Dispute Resolution: A Comparison of Bilateral and Multilateral Negotiations" by Robert H. Mnookin. 8 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 1 (2003).

"Teaching Interpersonal Skills for Negotiation and for Life." 16 Negotiation Journal 377 (2000).

"Constitutional Gravity: A Unitary Theory of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Public Civil Justice," by Richard C. Reuben. 47 U.C.L.A. Law Review 949 (April 2000).

"Negotiation Teaching in Law Schools" by Robert C. Bordone & Robert H. Mnookin in Negotiation Pedagogy: A Research Survey of Four Disciplines, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 2000.

"Advising Clients to Apologize," by Jonathan R. Cohen. 72 Southern California Law Review 4 (May 1999).

"Lessons of the IBM-Fujitsu Arbitration: How Disputants Can Work Together to Solve Deeper Conflicts" by Robert H. Mnookin and Jonathan Greenberg. 4 Dispute Resolution Magazine No. 3 (Spring, 1998).

"Reasoning Along Different Lines: Some Varied Roles of Rationality in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution," Jonathan R. Cohen. 3 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 111 (1998).

"Commentary: Negotiation, Settlement, and the Contingent Fee," by Robert H. Mnookin. 47 DePaul L. Rev. No. 2 (Winter 1998).

"A Model for Efficient Discovery," by Robert H. Mnookin & Robert B. Wilson. 25 Games and Economic Behavior (1998).

"Alternative Dispute Resolution," by Robert H. Mnookin. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law (P. Newman, ed.) Grove Dictionaries, Inc., New York (1998). "Divorce," by Robert H. Mnookin. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law (P. Newman, ed.) Grove Dictionaries, Inc., New York (1998).

"Does Disputing Through Agents Enhance Cooperation? Experimental Evidence" by Robert H. Mnookin and Rachel Croson. 26 Legal Stud. No.2 (June 1997).

Case Simulations

"Super Slipster" (Matt Smith with Robert Bordone and Michael Moffitt), (2005)

"Time for Change" (Robert Bordone and Gillien Todd), (2004)

"Vacation Time" (Robert Bordone and Gillien Todd), (2004)

"The Advocates" (Robert Bordone), (2004)

"Firm Conversation" (Sarah Hurwitz and Robert Bordone), (2004)

"Fresh Air Airways" (Candace Modlin with Robert Bordone), (2004)

"Dorm Talk" (Robert Bordone and Daniel Shapiro), (2003)

"Zen and Kerry's" (Thomas Allen and Robert Bordone), (2002)

"Theotis Wiley" (Jake Erhard with Robert Bordone), (2001)

"Ted Wiley" (Jake Erhard with Robert Bordone), (2001)

"Commonwealth v. McGorty" (Robert Bordone and Jeremy McClane), (2001)

"The DONS Negotiation" (Robert Bordone and Jonathan Cohen), (2000)

Videos

Saving the Last Dance: Mediation through Understanding (with Gary J. Friedman, Jack Himmelstein, & Robert Mnookin), (2001)

Lawyer and Clients: The Initial Interview (with Robert H. Mnookin), (1998)