Here is a sampling of INP’s contributions to the research literature:
Understanding Partisan Politics: Relational Identity Theory
By Daniel Shapiro. Published in “American Psychologist”.
This article presents a wholly new approach to international relations and partisan politics. Emotions are a vital dimension in conflicts among nation-states and communities affiliated by common ethnic, economic, or political interests. Yet the individuals most responsible for managing such conflicts, heads of state, CEOs, intellectual or religious leaders, are often blind to the psychological forces affecting their interests. During 20 years of international research, consulting, and teaching, Dr. Shapiro has developed a program for teaching thought leaders how to apply psychological principles to achieve their aims while also reducing negative outcomes such as violence, social upheaval, and economic displacement. In this article, he presents relational identity theory (RIT), a theoretical and intellectual framework he has originated to help people understand and deal with key emotional dimensions of conflict management. He argues that national and communal bonds are essentially tribal in nature, and he describes how a tribe’s unaddressed relational identity concerns make it susceptible to what he term the tribes effect, a rigid us-vs-them mindset. He provides strategies based on RIT for mitigating the tribes effect and thus enhancing global security.
Read Understanding Partisan Politics: Relational Identity Theory.
The Prevention Principle
By Daniel Shapiro and Adam Kinon
Published by Oxford University Press in the Journal of International Dispute Settlement.
When should the United Nations, the United States or the European Union intervene in foreign conflicts? Should they intervene at all or would another entity be in a better position to do so? These are some of the underlying questions of this article, in which the authors discuss concrete ways to prevent destructive conflicts, typically international armed conflicts. They put forward a pragmatic framework, called the Prevention Principle, to recognize and prevent destructive conflict at the earliest possible time at the lowest legitimate level. The authors set out the nature of destructive conflicts, explain how early intervention should occur, and propose a model to identify the most appropriate and effective intervener.
Read The Prevention Principle.
From Signal to Semantic: Uncovering the Emotional Dimension of Negotiation
By Daniel Shapiro
Published in “Nevada Law Journal”.
The author co-created the Core Concerns Framework as a pragmatic model to help people address the emotional dimension of negotiation. Dealing directly with the variety of emotions that arise in a negotiation can overwhelm our cognitive capacity, especially in a high-stakes context, where there are multiple layers of communication, processes, and substantive issues. The framework suggests that negotiators turn their attention to a subset of motives–what the authors call core concerns–to illuminate and navigate the emotional dimension of negotiation.
In the Nevada Law Journal symposium on mindfulness and the core concerns, Professor Clark Freshman calls into question how “core” the core concerns are. His critique provides an opportunity for Daniel Shapiro to provide a fuller explanation of the bases for the Core Concerns Framework. This article reviews the Core Concerns Framework, explains its universal and cross-cultural applicability and particular utility within the context of negotiation, and concludes with commentary on the importance of chunking and habit as effective tools for integration of emotion-focused strategies into a negotiator’s repertoire.
Emotions in Negotiation: Peril or Promise?
By Daniel Shapiro
Marquette University Law Review, 2004
While emotions can be a barrier to a value-maximizing agreement, the common advice to “get rid of emotions” is infeasible and unwise. On the contrary, research suggests that negotiators can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a negotiation by gaining an understanding of the information communicated by emotions-their own and those of others-and enlisting positive emotions into the negotiation.
Read Emotions in Negotiation: Peril or Promise?
Reconciliation Systems Design
By Daniel Shapiro
This paper introduces a new field of study, Reconciliation Systems Design, to guide policymakers and community leaders in conceptualizing, operationalizing, synergizing, and implementing a comprehensive, broad-scale, post conflict reconciliation system. I elucidate major obstacles to effective reconciliation design and describe twelve strategies to construct and implement a robust approach to societal healing. These twelve interwoven strategies cover all aspects of reconciliation design from establishing the design team and mapping the stakeholders to synergizing various processes and mechanisms and mobilizing public support for reconciliation. The paper concludes with recommendations to advance research and education in the field of Reconciliation Systems Design.
Read Reconcilation Systems Design.
Negotiating the Symbolic
By Daniel Shapiro and Vanessa Liu
The challenges of post-atrocity recovery are massive and manifold, but perhaps the most fundamental is the capacity for previously divided groups to return to an emotional place of sustainable, harmonious coexistence. This requires efforts to break down the stereotypes and barriers of “tribalism,” including conflicting characterizations of victims and perpetrators. Yet even the best intentioned of such efforts often prove inadequate in the face of three common obstacles: (1) lack of clarity about the objectives of reconciliation, (2) application of a cookie-cutter reconciliation plan, and (3) an ineffective process used to design the plan. Thus, in this chapter we introduce four crucial objectives for promoting integrative dynamics, describe a system for operationalizing those objectives to fit the particular post-atrocity context, and illuminate key negotiation principles to ensure that the reconciliation design process itself moves toward a productive outcome.
Read Negotiating the Symbolic.
Worldviews in Conflict: Negotiating to Bridge the Divide
By Daniel Shapiro and Jonathan Iwry
Many global and political conflicts involve differences in worldviews. As our world grows increasingly interconnected, and as differences in identity—and the politics of identity—play an increasingly prominent role in our cultural discourse, these differences become harder than ever to ignore. Yet worldviews remain poorly understood, and traditional methods of interest-based negotiation are insufficient to address this dimension of conflict, which implicates core aspects of who we are, what we believe, and how we make meaning in the world. In this article, we examine what worldviews are, why they matter, and how clashes of worldviews can impede conflict resolution. We offer strategies and tactics to overcome these obstacles, drawing on scholarship in conflict management, social identity theory, relational identity theory, and moral psychology. Overcoming the clash of worldviews requires that we learn to build bridges across our respective worldviews, acknowledging each party’s relationship to their beliefs and values while emphasizing similarities to build a common identity that transcends our respective differences.
Read Worldviews in Conflict: Negotiating to Bridge the Divide
The Power of the Civic Mindset: A Conceptual Framework for Overcoming Political Polarization
By Daniel Shapiro
This Article proposes a new conceptual paradigm for overcoming political polarization—the civic mindset. I argue that the primary psychological barrier to bridging political divides is an adversarial state of mind called the partisan mindset, and I explain its specific characteristics, fundamental operating principles, and triggers. To combat polarization, I introduce the civic mindset, elucidate its basic features and functions, and explain how societal embrace of this unique outlook can advance a vibrant political space within which partisan competition and national unity can thrive.
Read The Power of the Civic Mindset: A Conceptual Framework for Overcoming Political Polarization.