Decision Making and Negotiation

Trump prides himself on his deal-making abilities, but securing “the ultimate deal” between Israelis and Palestinians presents major challenges.

BY LAUREN WINDMEYER Last Friday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize for his long-running efforts to end Colombia’s 52-year civil war. Santos led negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC rebels for four years, ultimately coming to an agreement this August. To go into effect, the agreement needed a final vote […]

BY ROBERT REYNOLDS Policy students interested in nudging must run experiments. Yet, rigorous experiments require substantial time, funding, and expert guidance. Because most students do not have this, behavioral enthusiasts rarely complete experiments while in policy school. This should change. So, how can policy students do this without succumbing to the difficulties of professional experiments? […]

BY ROBERT REYNOLDS Nudging—the application of behavioral insights to public policy interventions—is among today’s fastest growing public policy fields. In the last few years, organizations from the White House to Google to the World Bank have launched behavioral science teams tasked with running randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that identify powerful nudges. During this time, Kennedy […]

BY JOSHUA C. FIVESON This piece appeared in our 2015 print journal. You can order your copy here.  In September 2013, the most active branch of the Al-Qaeda terror franchise—Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP— kidnapped a British-born American citizen. His name was Luke Somers. Raised in the United States, Somers pursued a degree in […]

On Sunday, March 29th, 2015, a senior Iran negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi, told Persian news sources that there is no agreement taking place and there are “no plans” to continue the talks until March 31st—the day of the deadline. Earlier in March, White House Spokesman John Earnest, […]

BY CAITLIN RYAN How will Americans say “I love you” this Valentine’s Day? Through $18.9 billion in gifts to our darlings, according to the National Retail Federation. Over half of us will purchase candy, including an estimated 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. Yet as we hand our honeys that box of tasty morsels, do […]

After years of tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Iran have held the highest-level talks since the 1979 Revolution to negotiate the status of Iran’s nuclear program and have set a November 24 deadline to come to a deal. The Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy’s Lauren Leatherby asks Dr. […]

The negotiations in Geneva are exciting, but miss much of the action. As US and Iranian diplomats sit down for the much-anticipated nuclear negotiations in Geneva, attention has focused on the drama unfolding in Europe. From Secretary Kerry’s premature departure from Israel on Friday, to French indignation over weak concessions on Saturday, there has been […]

BY SHERRY HAKIMI After the 1979 Iranian revolution and subsequent Iran hostage crisis, the United States ended its diplomatic relationship with Iran. In the period since, veiled threats and economic sanctions have become the American government’s primary mode of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This strategy has further entrenched the Islamic Republic and […]