International Economic Negotiation

Models versus Reality

Edited by Victor Kremenyuk, Deputy Director, Institute of the USA and Canada Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia and Gunnar Sjöstedt, Senior Research Fellow, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden

Historians and diplomats often claim that each international negotiation is a unique event. In contrast, negotiation theory, building on several academic disciplines, argues that international bargaining is characterized by recurrent patterns that can be generalized and formalized.

‘The book, consisting of an introductory chapter, three concluding chapters, and eleven case studies, seems to be amazingly well integrated. One can only commend the editors for bringing together a group of economists, political scientists, sociologists, lawyers, government officials, and business people to write systematic cases that explicitly compare hypotheses based on economic and negotiations theory . . . In sum, one must truly commend the editors on their achievement. As I have noted, in contrast to most edited volumes, the themes that are raised in the introduction are very carefully and systematically take up by the case study authors, and then the results are subjected to detailed analysis . . . Their approach should be a model to others.’
– Vinod K. Aggarwal, Journal of Economic Literature

‘This useful collection of papers seeks to derive general principles about the outcomes of international economic negotiations on the basis of the data from eleven diverse trade and financial case studies. Most such negotiations are welfare-enhancing for the participants as a group. The welfare functions of the countries are much more complex and multi-dimensional than those of the firms involved in these negotiations. Each of the parties seeks to structure the framework for the negotiations and the strategy to enhance its share of these gains.’
– Robert Z. Aliber, University of Chicago, US