American Negotiating Behavior: Wheeler-Dealers, Legal Eagles, Bullies, and Preachers

This landmark study offers a rich and detailed portrait of the negotiating practices of American officials. It assesses the multiple influences—cultural, institutional, historical, and political—that shape how American policymakers and diplomats approach negotiations with foreign counterparts and highlights behavioral patterns that transcend the actions of individual negotiators and administrations.

Informed by discussions and interviews with more than fifty seasoned foreign and American negotiators, Richard H. Solomon and Nigel Quinney argue that four distinctive mind-sets have combined to shape U.S. negotiating practice: a businessperson’s pragmatic quest for concrete results, a lawyer’s attention to detail, a superpower’s inclination to dictate terms, and a moralizer’s sense of mission. The authors examine how Americans employ time, language, enticements, and pressure tactics at the negotiating table, and how they use (or neglect) the media, back channel communications, and hospitality outside the formal negotiating arena. They also explore the intense interagency rivalries and congressional second-guessing that limit U.S. negotiators’ freedom to maneuver.

Contributors: Gilles Andreani • Chan Heng Chee • David Hannay • Faruk Logoglu • Lalit Mansingh • Yuri Nazarkin • Robert Schulzinger • Koji Watanabe • John Wood