Advanced Negotiation: Public Policy

Catalog description

Advanced Negotiation courses are designed to take students beyond the two-party, lawyer-client negotiations that were the focus of the introductory Negotiation Seminar, to examine many facets of negotiation complexity, both in terms of the participants and topics. This section of Advanced Negotiation will focus on multi-party negotiations, domestic and international, addressing issues related to public policy and the challenges of representing governmental and stakeholder organizations in high stakes disputes. We will explore domestic negotiations involving environmental conflicts and natural resource management under conditions of climate change; municipal governance and public health; the relationship between civil resistance, negotiation and social change; and ethical issues that arise when facing threats by powerful actors unwilling to compromise. We will investigate efforts to achieve reconciliation following entrenched communal violence in the United States (Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1963 Birmingham campaign) and abroad (dialogue processes underlying and following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland) and we will examine multilateral negotiations to curtail nuclear proliferation and climate change. Class sessions will include critical discussion of readings, in-class simulations, teamwork, improvisational creativity, collaborative decision-making, and group presentations. The goals of the class are for students (1) to acquire an added theoretical base beyond what was covered in the Negotiation Seminar through which to analyze, prepare for, participate in and facilitate more complex, multiparty negotiations on public policy issues both domestic and international, (2) to expand negotiation and analytical skills through deeper examination of various actual negotiation cases and complex simulations, and (3) to develop interactive group…