Can Russia and the United States really move beyond their bitter Cold War rivalry to a genuinely cooperative relationship?

This volume presents seven case studies of the United States Institute of Peace’s facilitated dialogue efforts in Iraq, Kosovo, Israel/Palestine, Colombia, Nigeria, and Nepal. Covering a variety of conflict situations and peacemaking efforts—from the tribal reconciliation in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, to a justice and security dialogue in Nepal—the cases tell stories of peacebuilding successes, efforts in progress, limitations on what can be achieved, and lessons learned.

As the most populous country in Africa and a major oil producer, Nigeria has long been recognized as the dominant force in West Africa. But its standing within the broader international arena, especially its comparative position within the Muslim world, has been less well understood. Indeed, does Nigeria's influence extend beyond the region?

In this concise volume, John N. Paden answers this very question, contending that Nigeria is globally significant for a multitude of reasons, not least of which for the political resiliency it has demonstrated despite its complex ethnolinguistic and religious diversity. He argues that Nigeria, with a population that is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, could serve uniquely as a model for interreligious political accommodation and as a bridging actor in global politics between the West and the Muslim world. He concludes by calling on the United States to formulate better engagement strategies in the region and to support Nigeria’s political resilience by strengthening social, cultural, and economic ties, and by showing greater understanding and diplomatic tolerance toward the country.

Faith and Politics in Nigeria offers timely, clear, and astute analysis that will be valued by students and scholars of Islamic and African studies and provides keen recommendations for policymakers and conflict-management practitioners.

George examines seven cases--from Pearl Harbor to the Persian Gulf--in which the United States has used coercive diplomacy in the past half-century.

Even before it led opposition to the recent war on Iraq, France was considered the most difficult of the United States’ major European allies. Each side tends to irritate the other, not least at the negotiating table, where Americans complain of French pretensions and arrogance, and the French fulminate against U.S. hegemonisme and egoisme. But, whether they like it or not, the two nations are going to have to deal with one another for a long time to come.

Charles Cogan’s timely and insightful study can’t guarantee to make those encounters more fruitful, but it will help France’s negotiating counterparts understand how and why French officials behave as they do. With impressive objectivity and authority, Cogan first explores the cultural and historical factors that have shaped the French approach and then dissects its key elements. Mixing rationalism and nationalism, rhetoric and brio, self-importance and embattled vulnerability, French negotiators often seem more interested in asserting their country’s “universal” mission than in reaching agreement. Three recent case studies illustrate this distinctively French mélange.

Yet agreement is by no means always elusive. Cogan offers practical suggestions for making negotiations more cooperative and productive—although he also emphasizes the long-term damage inflicted by the crisis over Iraq.

Drawing on candid interviews with many of today’s leading players on the French, American, British, and German sides, this engaging volume will inform and stimulate both seasoned practitioners and academics as well as students of France and the negotiating process.

This book is the recipient of the Prix Ernest Lémonon from L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 2006

This collaboration of renowned scholars and a practitioner in conflict management and African politics seeks to draw wide-ranging and timely conclusions on the early stages of mediation from six case studies: Burundi, Rwanda, the Congo, Sudan, and West Africa and the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

From NAFTA to NATO, from the WTO to the WHO, a vast array of international regimes manages an astounding number of regional and global problems. Yet the dynamics of these enormously influential bodies are barely understood. Scholars have scrutinized international regimes, but that scrutiny has been narrowly focused on questions of regime formation and regime compliance. Remarkably little attention has been paid to the crucial question of how regimes sustain themselves and evolve.

This pioneering work sets about correcting that neglect. As its title suggests, Getting It Done explores how international regimes accomplish their goals—goals that constantly shift as problems change and the power of member-states shifts. In a series of conceptually bold opening chapters, the volume editors emphasize that successful evolution depends above all on a process of continuous negotiation—domestic as well as international—in which norms, principles, and rules are modified as circumstances and interests change.

The second part of the volume takes this framework and applies it to four case studies, two regional, two global. Each case study presents the aims, achievements, and structure of a regime and demonstrates how it adjusts its course through negotiation. A final chapter draws both theoretical and practical lessons for the future.

Analyzes the defining characteristics and underlying dynamics of intractable conflicts.

A terrible famine struck the most reclusive society on earth in 1994. Over the next five years, while the North Korean regime tried to hide the dreadful reality and the international community tried hard not to look, perhaps as many as 3 million people starved to death. In this powerful, provocative book, Andrew Natsios asks three overarching questions: What do we know about the origins and extent of the famine? Why did donor governments and organizations not do more to help? What are the consequences of the famine for North Korea and the lessons for the international community?

In the search for answers, Natsios supplements the scanty store of published sources by drawing on the testimony of thousands of refugees, on thousands of e-mails he received while heading an NGO effort to aid the victims, and on his own encounters with officials from North Korea as well as from Western governments. The picture he presents is a disturbing one: human misery on a biblical scale, a paranoid regime that sacrificed its own citizens to ideological rigidity and pride, and foreign governments that subordinated humanitarian impulses to political and diplomatic interests.

A compelling and revealing book for specialists and general readers alike,The Great North Korean Famine takes us not only behind the well-guarded borders of the brutally incompetent “Hermit Kingdom” but also into the policymaking labyrinth where ethics and politics clash in the struggle to shape foreign policy.

An illustrious cast of practitioners here describe their personal experiences in working to bring peace in significant conflicts across four continents. As James Baker, Richard Holbrooke, Max van der Stoel, Alvaro de Soto, Aldo Ajello, and others make clear, the mediator must operate in an environment of daunting complexity, insecurity, and uncertainty. Whether sequestered in Norway or zigzagging across Africa, the mediator can take nothing for granted—not participants, agendas, or timetables—in the struggle to sustain and advance the peace process.

And just to make things more complicated, each conflict now typically attracts several independent mediators. Indeed, coordinating third party mediators is like herding cats—difficult if not impossible.

In each of the two dozen cases examined in this volume, mediation was a multiparty effort, involving a range of actors—individuals, states, international organizations, and NGOs—working simultaneously or sequentially. These vivid accounts attest to the crucial importance of coordinating and building upon the efforts of other players. They also illuminate the opportunities and problems presented by different entry points of mediation—from conflict prevention, through negotiation during active conflict, to post-settlement implementation and peacebuilding—and by different kinds of leverage, levels of engagement, and objectives.

This volume was developed by the same editors who were responsible for USIP Press's highly successful 1996 publication Managing Global Chaos and is intended as a follow-on to that book. In their feedback on the 1996 volume, readers requested additional resources, especially case studies that reflect real, hands-on experience in complex settings. Not only will these cases illustrate how multiparty mediation works or does not work, but they should also stimulate further work on the special requirements and best practices of the field, promote a dialogue among practitioners themselves as well as between academics and practitioners, and lead to unique insights, new understandings, and alternative approaches that can be applied to future mediations.

The editors have framed the volume with discussions that link the practitioner cases to the scholarly literature on mediation, thereby situating the case studies in terms of theory while also drawing lessons for both scholars and practitioners that can help guide future endeavors.