Back‐channel negotiations (BCNs) are officially sanctioned negotiations conducted in secret between the parties to a dispute. These extraordinary negotiations operate in parallel with, or replace, acknowledged front channels of negotiation. Back channels are like the black markets of negotiation; they are separate tables where bargaining takes place in the shadows. When front‐channel negotiations fail, they are sometimes eclipsed by successful BCNs even though the same principals, conflicts, and sociopolitical contexts are involved. This article asks: Why do decision makers deploy back channels? What is the impact of BCN on international peace processes? The Palestinian–Israeli peace process, in which both back and front channels have been used consistently, provides the basis for comparing channels and offering initial answers to these questions. The author concludes that while BCN can facilitate breakthrough agreements, it can also damage a peace process by helping to reinforce some of the uncertainties that gave rise to the use of back channels in the first place.

The literature of negotiation and conflict resolution continues to build on and move away from traditional emphases on transactions and decision making. Topics such as the impact of culture on negotiation once aroused debate but are no longer even controversial. Enough scholars in our large and multidisciplinary field have benefited from the insights of complementary social sciences so that few serious scholars or practitioners doubt that identity and culture are dynamic factors affecting negotiations. Some have moved beyond the quest for distributional efficiency that characterized so much early research and now advocate nothing less than social transformation and empowerment through conflict resolution methodologies. Several recent contributions to the negotiation literature ‐ Negotiating Globally, and Reaching for Higher Ground in Conflict Resolution ‐ are evidence that literature in the field is pushing new frontiers.