Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that international meetings and negotiations ultimately depend on human perceptions and behaviors and that such perceptions and behaviors are affected critically by the subjective and common cultures of the public and private negotiators involved.
Differences in perception, cognition, reasoning, and communication styles can lead to misperceptions and miscommunications that hamper these meetings and create conflicts. What you feel and think in an intercultural conflict and what others intend for you to feel and think are not always the same. To avoid or ameliorate intercultural communication problems and the dysfunctional conflicts that they create or exacerbate requires training in cultural awareness and intercultural communication that promotes intercultural exploration and learning how to learn. Intercultural exploration uses differences in cultures to develop new options and approaches, build relationships, and create unique solutions.Intercultural exploration is becoming more needed as we move from the traditional world of bilateral diplomacy to the more complex world of multilateral, permanent negotiations (Winham, 1979). Those who use adversarial procedures and hold to official positions, behaviors that have (or had) some merit in traditional diplomacy, are counterproductive in these new situations. Similarly, the traditional techniques of Western peacekeeping and peacemaking may temporarily reduce the levels of violence in destructive conflicts, but they are unlikely to produce long-term problem solving and peace building (Kimmel, 1992, 1998). Peace builders trained in the intercultural exploration process can locate the larger issues, manage complexity, inspire confidence, get beyond immediate differences, and build relationships as cultural integrators.
As the examples in this chapter have illustrated, equalitarian relationships are crucial in today’s world of multilateral negotiations and consensual agreements.
Without good faith and trust, multilateral agreements and resolutions will not hold and negotiations will break down. The recognition and respect that emerge when public and private negotiators genuinely feel that they are equals provide a foundation upon which they can engage in constructive controversy and collaborate regardless of major differences in their subjective and common cultures. Modesty and graciousness are prerequisites to constructive controversy and peace building. (See Chapters One, Two, and Three for fuller discussions of cooperation, equality, and constructive controversy.)We are facing impasses in our political, economic, and diplomatic negotiations on more and more occasions. Ethnocentric and tolerant diplomatic approaches have harmed our international relationships. A great deal of effort has gone into getting nations and ethnic groups in destructive conflicts to meet. Persuading them to recognize and talk to each other has not been easy (Saunders, 1987). Similar amounts of effort are required to develop and implement programs to make their negotiations more successful through the development of the skills necessary to create microcultures. Hopefully, future policy makers will invest in the training programs needed to produce more culturally aware public and private negotiators who can learn how to learn. I believe that we can learn how to create international microcultures that will let us build a global village in which we can all live; a village in which groups of equals who desire each other’s welfare all participate and learn from each other as cultural integrators.