NEGOTIATION AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

6 ECTS credits

This course introduces students to the fields of negotiation and conflict resolution from a historical, analytical, and psychological perspective. The first portion of the course will serve as a comprehensive survey of the field of conflict resolution. Topics will include an overview of the history of conflict resolution; an analysis of modern-day conflicts and their resolutions, including case-studies such as Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and the Israeli-Palestine conflict; theories of causes and preventions of violent conflict; and ways to successfully resolve conflicts. The second portion of the course will be dedicated to an analysis of the theory and practice of one particular way to resolve conflicts: negotiation. Three different perspectives will be applied to the ‘art of negotiation:’ the institutional perspective, including a brief history of the field of negotiation and an overview of the role of institutions in negotiation; the psychological perspective, through cognitive and behavioral analyses of the psychological processes involved in negotiation and decision-making; and the analytical perspective, including theoretical models of bargaining and the analytic barriers to bargaining. The theoretical aspects of the course will be complimented with plenty of case-studies and relevant examples.