Formation/Cours

The student should be able to put Negotiations, especially diplomatic negotiations, in their historical context, as well as to trace back in time the very notion of Negotiation itself. The student should be able to explain how the word “Diplomat” was created, how it emerged and how it diverged from that of “Negotiator”. Furthermore, the student should be able to identify key negotiation concepts within a given historical example. He or she shoud be able to conceptualise the reading of historical negotiation stories while putting them in negotiation-like language.

The course will be two-fold. One the one side, the lecturer will give historical background on Diplomatic Negotiations, mainly in the western world, starting with the rise of the Ambassador’s concept in Italy’s XVth century, down to the establishment of permanent Embassies in the XVII and XVIII centuries, the French school of thought on what the Ambassador functions, and more recent XXth century multilateral attempts.

On the other side, the course will be an interaction with the class, where students will study concrete negotiations stories, that is, real cases taken in the History of Europe and the West. The aim of this second part will be to step in the shoes of skillfull negotiators back in the past, and try to identify negotiation concepts beyond the intricacies of History. The exercise will mean an effort to look not just at the stories, but also at the theory behind it, helping the students to become better profesionnal actors today.