This article analyzes the intricate dynamics of protracted, asymmetric, and ethnonational (PAE) conflicts across continents, spanning the period from 1960 to 2021. Focused on Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, the research investigates the impact of specific bargaining and leadership strategies on the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts. Drawing from insights on the “nested negotiation network” phenomenon, the study examines and compares the relationships between parties within 11 complex conflict systems. Key findings include the crucial role of informal negotiations in shaping formal talks, a precedent of decreased major violence preceding negotiated resolutions, and the nuanced relationship between negotiation network density and inclusive formal negotiations. Noteworthy insights also include the distinctive influence of civil society and Indigenous groups, the political role of the military, and the mediating impact of external actors in bridging structural gaps within negotiation networks. The study highlights the significance of the strategic position of an actor in a relationship network, allowing for diverse manifestations of leadership styles in influencing the outcomes of peace processes. Individual authority figures and organizations can leverage their inter-coalition and intra-coalition connections to move the conflict closer to a successful resolution, while safeguarding their own vested interests at the bargaining table. These insights have important implications for understanding the complex interplay of actors and relationships in the resolution of PAE conflicts.

Regional conflicts are becoming increasingly complex due to the involvement of an ever more numerous and interconnected set of actors. Previous research has focused on regional conflict systems and has generated theoretical approaches such as the regional security complex paradigm. However, when complex, multifaceted, seemingly contradictory webs of relationships are spun in a region, new tools are needed to analyze and evaluate them. Drawing on previous regional conflict models, we propose a negotiation‐oriented framework of regional conflict analysis that explores the type and intensity of relationships between state and nonstate actors in a conflict system. We offer a seven‐step scale of relationships (ranging from ally to active armed opponent) that represents a novel contribution to the methodological efforts to analyze relationships in conflict systems. This framework brings to light the relational imbalance of the MENA region and has the potential to contextualize for negotiators and mediators the complex system of conflicts within, and possibly outside, the region.

This article introduces the concept of a scholar‐entrepreneurial organization (SEO), defined as an entrepreneurial venture within an academic institution. We explore the case of the Negotiation Task Force (NTF), an SEO hosted at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Equipped with university seed funding, the NTF is intended to be self‐funded at the end of its 36‐month incubation period. We explain the NTF’s mission, minimum viable products, history, and now established flagship programs; explore the challenges and opportunities that a scholarly startup confronts; and conclude with recommendations for others seeking to launch an SEO.

Negotiation exercise design is a skill that, such as negotiation itself, is rooted in certain core principles and can be refined with practice. How writers approach the design process is the key to producing effective exercises and powerful learning experiences. This article addresses five core principles that can be used to curate both simple and moderately complex negotiation exercises, including games, role plays, and simulations. These core principles are (1) define the purpose, (2) determine the format, (3) maintain focus, (4) test the function, and (5) plan for a debrief. These principles can be used as a general framework to help writers overcome the challenges inherent in exercise design and empower them to create and deliver their own tailored negotiation exercises. The principles are a tried‐and‐true method developed from the authors' own experience designing the material for university curricula, executive education, and workshops for government, military, and private clients.

Negotiation practitioners today struggle to manage complex political, economic, and cultural disputes that often involve an array of intertwined issues, parties, process choices, and consequences – both intended and unintended. To prepare next‐generation negotiators for these multifaceted challenges, negotiation instructors must keep pace with the rapidly evolving complexity of today’s world. In this article, we introduce systemic multiconstituency exercises (SMCEs), a new educational tool for capturing this emerging reality and helping to close the experiential learning gap between the simulated and the non‐simulated environment. We discuss our pedagogical rationale for developing The Transition , a seventy‐two‐party SMCE inspired by the complex conflicts in Afghanistan and Central Asia and then describe our experiences conducting multiple iterations of this simulation at Harvard University. We argue that SMCEs, in which stakeholders are embedded in clusters of overlapping networks, differ from conventional multiparty exercises because of their immersive character, emergent properties, and dynamic architecture. This design allows for the creation of crucial negotiation complexity challenges within a simulated exercise context, most importantly what we call “cognitive maelstroms,” nested negotiation networks, and cascading decision effects. Because of these features, SMCEs are uniquely suited for training participants in the art of network thinking in complex negotiations. Properly designed and executed, systemic multiconstituency exercises are next‐generation teaching, training, and research platforms that carefully integrate negotiation, leadership, and decision‐making challenges.