Contemporary diplomacy has changed significantly since 1945. This paper examines the ways in which modern diplomacy can be better understood. As such it is based upon four sets of assumptions. In the first place, the study of international negotiation within the field of foreign policy analysis provides a route for analyzing other forms of national and international behaviour. Second, whilst some of the Characteristics of negotiation in a domestic setting are quite distinct, such as the degree of sanctions negotiators possess, international negotiations themselves can be categorized into a number of distinctive types. Third, that the process of negotiation can be best understood according to four categories of concepts: those associated with setting, the capabilities of negotiating parties, contingent variables. In the fourth category are those concepts developed to deal with new forms of negotiation (non- ‘convergence’ negotiations), in particular the complex multilateral type, in which the progression is not incremental or linear. A final assumption concerns the influence of the changing international agenda on negotiating mechanisms and processes: the nature and styles of conducting modem diplomacy have changed considerably as a result of the impact of several factors such as the increased number of actors and organizations, communication systems and also the nature and volume of international business. Yet whatever the impact of these changes, the crucial elements of successful negotiation remain: credit, compromise and confidence.

When it comes to the study of international negotiation processes, game theory has certain shortcomings. It is basically static in nature; it tends to homogenize actors and ‘blackbox’ information processing; and it assumes unitary actors. This article suggests a cognitive approach to the study of international negotiation processes as one way to overcome these shortcomings. The suggested model regards information processing as the link between inter-state negotiation and decision-making within the state, and emphasizes the role of belief systems in shaping expectations and interpretations. Specifically, the negotiating actors’ images of the adversary, self-images, and images of situation are singled out as suitable objects of study. Relevant insights and hypotheses concerning the relationship between different parts of the actors’ belief systems are identified.

Psychological factors and organizational phenomena play a significant role in negotiations. It is argued that a systematic study of negotiations requires a basic model which is. firstly, institutionalist in the sense that the rules which are constitutive and regulative of the negotiations are taken systematically into account, and, secondly, intentionalist in the sense that intended rationality is assumed. On the intentional aspect, a theoretical framework will be deficient if the strategic aspects are not taken systematically into account. A distinction is made between various types of negotiations, and these are used to illustrate the fruitfulness of game-theoretic concepts. For the institutional aspect, a case is argued for the fruitfulness for the study of negotiations of the concept of ‘speech act’ as a basis for dealing with commitments in a more nuanced and systematic way: also discussed are official purpose, participants and their roles, time and place, rules of communication, ‘institutional speech act profile’, and procedural rules. The significance of organizing and preparing negotiations so as to increase the chance of a satisfactory process and outcome is emphasized.

The article purports, first, to review briefly the evolution of conference diplomacy from the age of the Congress of Vienna until the era of the United Nations. Building upon this historical evidence, it attempts then to outline the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of research on conference diplomacy in general, and on global conference diplomacy as represented by UN-sponsored world conferences in particular. The bulk of the article is devoted to an analysis of the ‘typical’ unfolding of conference processes, moving through the four stages of initiation, preparation, negotiation for decision-making, and implementation. Here, the article seeks to demonstrate the analytical usefulness, if not necessity, of distinguishing between two major types of world conferences: action-orientated and rule-making conferences.

Noting that international negotiations occasionally fail to tap the full integrative potential of the issues in question, the author discusses four major obstacles to negotiation success: uncertainty, inaccurate information, process-generated stakes, and politically inadequate models for the design of substantive solutions. In a final section, the author briefly considers three pieces of ‘political technology’ that research in political science can contribute towards overcoming these obstacles.