International negotiations in a hybrid diplomatic arena: new actors, new tools - a practitioners' contribution

The diplomatic arena has become hybrid arena with actors of a diverse set of backgrounds: next to the traditional diplomats there are international business representatives, representatives of international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations and local communications. They have all been accepted and given access to the diplomatic arena since in the current global governance arena, governments need these new actors in order to deal with global challenges. Negotiation competences are key for diplomats, representatives of businesses, NGOs, civil society organisations or governments alike, to get things done' in the global diplomatic arena. This is not new and the literature on negotiations is vast. However, much of the literature is derived from or based on theory, or lacks an empirical basis to demonstrate that the negotiation tools as proposed actually work. In this paper, we introduce three negotiation tools that are built on extensive experience in international diplomatic negotiations, build on practice.