Resources & Tools

September 2009 | Book by John W. Limbert

John Limbert steps up with a pragmatic yet positive assessment of how to engage Iran. Through four detailed case studies of past successes and failures, he draws lessons for today’s negotiators and outlines 14 principles to guide the American who finds himself in a negotiation—commercial, political, or other—with an Iranian counterpart.

Countries: Iran | Issue Areas: Negotiation and Diplomacy
Afghan farmer in poppy field. (Photo: NY Times)
August 2009 | Peaceworks by Gretchen Peters

In Afghanistan's poppy-rich south and southwest, a raging insurgency intersects a thriving opium trade. A new USIP report, How Opium Profits the Taliban, examines who are the main beneficiaries of the opium trade, how traffickers influence the Taliban insurgency as well as the politics of the region, and considers the extent to which narcotics are changing the nature of the insurgency itself.

May 2009 | Special Report by David Waldner

 Post-conflict, post-totalitarian societies like Iraq possess many economic, political, social, and cultural characteristics that are not conducive to democratic governance. A central pillar of democracy promotion is that judicious institutional engineering--crafting new institutions and other elements outlining the democratic rules of the game--can overcome these obstacles and engender stable democracies.

Credit: USIP Press
April 2009

Over the last decade, USIP has produced a definitive series of books on culture and negotiating styles. Described as "profoundly useful," this series is essential reading for diplomats, trade negotiators, policymakers, business leaders, and students. Books have been produced on French, Russian, German, North Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Israeli, Palestinian, and Indian negotiating styles. American, Pakistan, and Iranian negotiating styles are currently under development.

USIP also published Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World (by Raymond Cohen). Orbis describes this resource as "a masterwork of cultural analysis applied to international politics...An insightful and entertaining narrative...on what can, but need not, go wrong in cross-cultural negotiations."

February 2009 | Book by Hugo van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter and Audrey R. Chapman, editors

In Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice, fourteen leading researchers study seventy countries that have suffered from autocratic rule, genocide, and protracted internal conflict.

September 2007 | Book by Teresa Whitfield

Addressing an increasingly important and greatly understudied phenomenon in international affairs, this groundbreaking volume analyzes the formation, actions, and efficacy of groups of states created to support UN peacemaking and peace operations. While these groups—Friends of the Secretary-General and related mechanisms—may represent just one small component of the United Nations’ increased involvement in conflict management, they have fast become a critical element in today’s system of global-security governance.

Hafez_SuicideBomb-300.jpg
July 2007 | Book by Mohammed M. Hafez

Author Mohammed Hafez examines the history of suicide bombing in Iraq, theoretical perspectives on suicide bombing, the varied factions that comprise the insurgency and the ideology and theology of martyrdom supporting suicide bombers in his new book Suicide Bombers in Iraq

Countries: Iraq | Issue Areas: Terrorism and Political Extremism
October 2006 | Peaceworks by Robert Pringle
Countries: Mali
October 2002 | Special Report by Nigel Quinney
Countries: United States | Issue Areas: Negotiation and Diplomacy
September 1996 | Book by Timothy D. Sisk