Organizing for Peace: Logics in Multi-Cultural Negotiations

Abstract: Fostering peace without letting the framing of problems constrain available solution sets, requires a multi-cultural approach to negotiations, grounded in a culturally-informed logic of appropriateness (Rapoport 1962; Kopelman, 2020). Such innovative negotiation frameworks inform practice-oriented theory and interventions. They allow researchers, practitioners, and teachers to synthesize cultural beliefs, values, and norms as these play out in political ideologies, economic structures, and day-to-day behaviors to foster cooperation and organize towards peace. Scholars in this round table will discuss how their negotiation research and practice considers “organizing for peace” within and across conflict domains. Discussants will be encouraged to devote particular attention to questions of self-interest, as informed by concepts of identity (cultural, ideological, political). Strategies to cultivate inclusive frameworks of identity and representation will be shared, with the goal of developing insights applicable to varied instances of conflict and cooperation dynamics.

Keywords: organizing for peace, cooperation, logics, culture