Harvard International Negotiation Program

(a Harvard Negotiation Project initiative)
Director: Daniel L. Shapiro

The Harvard International Negotiation Program (INP), founded and directed by Daniel L. Shapiro, builds intellectual capital to address the emotional and identity-based dimensions of ethnopolitical conflict. These situations tend to implicate ideological grievances, historical animosities, and tribalistic dynamics—forces that polarize groups and impede rational problem solving. Since its inception in 2000, INP has led global research and educational initiatives to bridge these emotional and identity-based divides. We teach courses across Harvard University and around the world, publish research on the emotional dimensions of conflict resolution, and develop curricula that translate our findings into practical negotiation tools. We have launched a range of academic initiatives including publication of major books such as Negotiating the Nonnegotiable; building a conflict assessment instrument for the International Criminal Court; leading educational programs on global security in cooperation with the World Economic Forum; and working to promote sustainable, mutually acceptable agreements in the Middle East. We host an annual lecture series featuring senior officials and leading security experts discussing the role of identity in conflict resolution. We also mentor a next generation of conflict scholars through courses at Harvard College such as Gen Ed 1033: Conflict Resolution in a Divided World, and through advisory support of the Harvard College International Negotiation Program, an official undergraduate negotiation club.

INP is affiliated with the Harvard Negotiation Project and based in the Psychology Program at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital. Illustrative outputs include research, lectures, and publications on overcoming political polarization (see Shapiro, White, and Shackleton, 2019), new models of post-conflict reconciliation, and novel conceptual frameworks to navigate issues deemed sacred and seemingly “nonnegotiable.”