LiteratureReview

Honeyman, C 2001, The Wrong Mental Image of Settlement, Negotiation Journal, vol. 17, no.1,

pp.715.

Ghosn, F 2010, Getting to the Table and Getting to Yes:An Analysis of International

Negotiations , International Studies Quarterly, Vol.54,no.4,pp.10551072.

Globalized world is full of conflicts, negotiation skills are of great importance to resolve

these conflicts. Two articles explains about conflict issues during international negotiations.

The Wrong Mental Image of SettlementbyChristopherHoneymansuggestsaccurateways

of representing the conflict cycle. The other article by Faten Ghosn, entitled Getting to the

Table and Getting to Yes: An Analysis of InternationalNegotiation,focusesmorenarrowly

on conflict management and factors influencing negotiation. Both authors occupied senior

levels in their respective areasofinternationalnegotiation, sothewritersaddvaluablepoints

intheirarticles,thusitcontributestothediscussion.

The main point of Honeymans article is that he believes in negotiations and mediations.

conflict of resolution does not end after the moment of settlement, butresultsinraisingof a

series of many conflicts. According to the writer's point ofviewtheprevalenceofinaccurate

mental images of negotiators problems creates an impact of failure where they frequently

achieve success bymeansofreasonablemeasures.Tosupportthisideahehasgiven example

of Good Friday Peace accord in Northern Ireland conflict. Author speculates about why the

public have this sort of inaccurate mental image. Honeyman suggests the three main
possible ways to represent the accurate form of conflict are firstly by improving teaching

and training material by incorporating major negotiations of the past secondly, by

improving communication with journalists will increase public understanding thirdly, by

showingclearandconciseoftheconflictcycle.

In this article, Ghosn claims that conditions are responsible for the conflicting states to

move towards negotiation table and he analyses the obstruction and facilities that associated

with the conflict management between states . Ghosn discusses the factors that controls the

successful negotiation. Moreover, the outcome of a negotiation depends upon the issues that

made states to come to the negotiation table. Ghosn further explains that at each stage

different effectsanddifferentimpactsareshownbycontextualfactorsduring thenegotiation

process. Few factors are responsible to bring states to the negotiation table, but these same

factorsarenotaccountableforsigningtheagreement.

Honeymans article is easy to read and understand.Inthisarticle thewriterprovidesagood

explanation about the increasing conflict after negotiation, he supports his article by giving

an appropriate example and provides a good argument with anecdotal evidences. However,

he could not provide a proper research evidences to support this article and no reasons for

the rise of disputes after the moment of settlement. The writer fails to giveaproperdiagram

and illustrations regarding the conflict cycle and sometimes this article was difficult to

follow due to the complex sentence. Honeymans article is purely opinion based, soitmay

beunprofitabletothereaders.

Ghosns article is quite comprehensive and easy to read which is similartotheHoneymans

article. The writer provides information regarding factors that influence the outcome of

negotiations. Thus, this article is extremely profitable to the readers in the field of

negotiation. The author has given a detailed description of agreement process and followed

by research evidences. However, incomplete data collection and the writer analyzed only

those cases in which militarized action was taken. Faten would have providedagraphrather

thantablewhichisamoreprecisepatterntounderstand.

In summary, Ghosns article is extremely useful to the readers who willing to have a broad

understanding about the negotiation process between states and the factors influencing the

outcomes of negotiation. Readers can read Honeymans article for generalideatoknowhow

conflictsarisesaftersettlement.