THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION: THE JORDANIAN-ISRAELI PEACE NEGOTIATION AS A CASE-STUDY

The world is becoming more interdependent. Governments and diplomats negotiate across cultures every day. Some argue that negotiators are professionals and share the common diplomatic culture, therefore their cultural backgrounds are irrelevant to international negotiation and in result culture has no significant influence on the process. The author argues that culture does matter and it could influence the different negotiation elements: individuals, process, and outcome - the larger the cultural gap between the parties, the larger the cultural influence. To substantiate his argument, the author uses a case-study analysis of the Jordanian-Israeli peace negotiation that led to the 1994 peace treaty. The author conducted eight semi-structured interviews with negotiators from the two countries who actively participated in the negotiation - including the heads of the two delegations. From this work, the author concludes that culture in the Jordanian-Israeli negotiation was manifested, and influenced the negotiators, the process, and the outcome in six different ways - culture was an enabler.