Negotiation Journal is pleased to include these announcements of recently published books of interest. A listing in this section does not constitute an evaluation of the book's merit nor does it exclude a book from consideration as the subject of a review in Negotiation Journal at some later date. Suggestions of books for inclusion in this section should be sent to [email protected].
Jeswald W. Salacuse. Leading Leaders: How To Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People. New York: AMACOM, 2006. 218 pages. $27.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 0814408559.
Jes Salacuse, a professor of law at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, offers this book designed to help leaders and managers lead and manage other leaders and managers. The book is for employers who are at the highest tiers of their organizations and whose intraorganizational conflict management skills need to take into account the high‐power status of disputants. After discussing leadership's relational and conversational aspects, Salacuse offers Seven Daily Tasks of Leadership that every leader of other leaders ought to bear in mind: direction, integration, mediation, education, motivation, representation, and trust creation.
Marian Roberts. Developing the Craft of Mediation: Reflections on Theory and Practice. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007. 254 pages. $29.95 (paperback), ISBN: 9781843103233.
Of interest to both theorists and practitioners, Developing the Craft of Mediation collects and organizes sixteen practitioners' reflections on mediation. Contributors reflect on conflict; the traits of good mediators; obstacles to successful practice; the connections and disconnections between theory and practice; preferred styles, models, and methods; and the nature, purpose, and principles of mediation.
Roberts interviewed each contributor individually, but the book's chapters are divided by topic, facilitating comparison and turning the collection from a compilation into a forum. In each chapter, Roberts introduces and then summarizes several dozen‐long and topically linked quotations. She also ties them together with short segues.
Most of the book's contributors have trained and practiced mostly in the United Kingdom. American readers will be intrigued at how their counterparts across the pond think outside of the frameworks that structure much of the theory and practice of mediation in the United States. As Roberts writes, “There is no indication that the dominant North American cultural formulations about mediation practice, in particular the narrow parameters of the bargaining/therapeutic, evaluative/facilitative, or problem‐solving/transformative dualities constrain thinking about practice in the UK and Europe.”
Roberts notes that the contributors view mediation not as a loose art or a strict science but somewhere in between, as a craft. This view's implications for theory and practice are explored in the book as well.
Mohammed O. Maundi, I. William Zartman, Gilbert Khadiagala, and Kwaku Nuamah. Getting in: Mediators' Entry into the Settlement of African Conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006. 229 pages. $17.50 (paperback), ISBN: 1929223625.
By thoroughly examining six case studies of conflict in Africa — in Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, West Africa, and at the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea — the authors investigate several underexplored areas of the peace studies field. They focus on conflict in the African continent, extracting lessons that have immediate potential to prevent and manage future conflict there and also, the authors hope, elsewhere. Although they follow each peace process to its conclusion, they mount a direct and sustained investigation of the initiation of mediation. While many alternative dispute resolution books dwell on the process of mediation once it is in full swing, this book focuses on how it starts. Finally, five of the case studies examine intrastate conflict. The book will especially interest scholars and mediators working on civil wars, dispute resolution in Africa, or the initiation of mediation in any context.
Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (eds.). Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007. 726 pages. $45 (paperback), ISBN: 192922396X.
From the editors of Herding Cats and Turbulent Peace, this volume collects more than forty essays from leading analysts of international affairs. After looking at sources of conflict and challenges to global security, it moves on to the uses and limits of force, diplomacy, institutions, and governance in managing these conflicts. Canvassing new and old themes in conflict management and international relations, the volume is ideal for teachers, students, practitioners, and policymakers.
Vibeke Vindeløv. Mediation: A Non‐Model. Copenhagen: Diøf Publishing, 2007. 333 pages. $54.00 (paperback), ISBN: 8757414793.
Danish mediator Vibke Vindeløv's introductory “textbook” describes conflict and mediation practices for resolving it. It outlines the conflict mediation process in general, and then covers such topics as neutrality and impartiality, ethics and liability, caucuses, lawyers and other professional advisors, power dynamics and justice, reconciliation, and international conflicts.
Not just a descriptive textbook, Mediation argues that six well‐known models for mediation processes — the “problem‐solving and settlement‐focused,” the “cognitive,” the “transformative,” the “narrative,” the “humanistic,” and the “organic”— are never neutral. Vindeløv argues that each of them is built on values and assumptions, and so mediators are not, as they usually claim, neutral in their administration of any of them. The “non‐model” that Vindeløv recommends instead finds mediators borrowing from any of these six models according to the explicit requests and implicit requirements of the participants and the nature of their conflict.
Defending against the objection that this flexibility amounts to “anything goes,” Vindeløv delimits this nonmodel by drawing some boundaries. For example, he says that “it is outside the bounds of mediation” for mediators to take part in therapeutic activities with the parties, act only as go‐betweens for parties that refuse to have a dialogue, or evaluate parties' proposals. Thus, according to Vindeløv, mediation practice does not include the traditional Navajo peacemakers' practice of passing around a tobacco pipe, or hostage negotiators' practice of “shuttle negotiation.”
Habib Chamoun‐Nicolás in collaboration with Randy Doyle Hazlett. Negotiate Like a Phoenician: Discover Tradeables. Kingwood, TX: Keynegotiations, 2007. 233 pages. $24.95 (paperback), ISBN: 9780979207303.
In Negotiate Like a Phoenician, Habib Chamoun make points about negotiation by marshalling historical evidence from scripture and drawing attention to the practices of successful ancient negotiators. The Phoenicians of the title were one of the world's first dominant and successful international trading groups. Drawing on historians' research, Chamoun identifies about two dozen principles of “Phoenician negotiating strategy,” including “Know your product,”“Know your customer,”“Know your competition,”“Earn trust,”“Keep the peace,”“Wrap bad news in a Twinkie,” and “Use tradeables!” (Tradeables is Chamoun's trademarked term for “the hidden secret of great deals,” or those things that get integrated during an integrative bargaining process.) The Phoenicians, Chamoun stresses, used win–win negotiation and rapport‐building business practices. And, rather than focus on the conflicts over Biblical meaning, Chamoun notes how much the Bible has to teach us about negotiation.
Jill Shankleman. Oil, Profits, and Peace: Does Business Have a Role in Peacemaking? Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006. 234 pages. $35 (paperback), ISBN: 1‐929223‐98‐6.
“While oil might be expected to provide the economic means for preventing or resolving conflict or for rebuilding countries that have suffered civil war, the reality is that countries with oil and gas resources are among the world's most persistent sites of conflict,” writes Jill Shankleman in this book. She goes on to examine the different experiences of three oil‐rich countries — Angola, Azerbaijan, and Sudan — with conflict and corporate social responsibility. She examines the links between oil and conflict in oil‐producing countries, the ways that oil companies can effect positive change, the fiscal rewards awaiting oil companies who could play a larger role in conflict resolution, the factors limiting the extent to which oil companies can reduce conflict, ways to mitigate the “resource curse,” and key components of corporate social responsibility in the oil industry. Shankleman's book should appeal to anyone affiliated with the kind of groups she has consulted for: corporations in the petroleum industry, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations considering the social and environmental impacts of oil and gas investment.
William J. Durch (ed.). Twenty‐First‐Century Peace Operations, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006. 660 pages. $35 (paperback), ISBN: 1‐929233‐91‐9.
Editing his third volume of pragmatic essays examining the Untied Nation's attempts at peacekeeping, Durch presents six cases of complex peace operations in post‐Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo, East Timor, and Afghanistan. He and the authors examine successes, failures, and lessons for best practices. There is a special focus on state building amid politically charged peacekeeping efforts.
The authors draw from their experiences helping develop Afghanistan's new constitution and judicial system, serving as deputy force commander for the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor, working in the White House and U.S. State Department, directing change management in the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and serving in Gaza with the Office of the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. This thorough and comprehensive volume will be of special interest to scholars of international relations, practitioners, and policymakers.
