The Effect of Iranian Culture on the Role of the Third Party in Track Two Diplomacy (2013)

Culture both separates and unites people. While it can separate one group from another, it  also unites individuals within one particular group. Since the world is shrinking due to globalization, it is important to understand other cultures. Interactions across cultures are now a constant occurrence thus there needs to be a growing push towards understanding what different cultures are, how they interact with each other and what it means for those who constantly participate in activities that involve cross-cultural communication.

This understanding is especially important for those involved in conflict resolution, conflict management or conflict transformation. In order to be able to address a conflict, one has to understand how the other party views the conflict; and culture plays a large part in one’s view of the conflict and the possible solutions. Culture is the lens through which one views the world. It colors differently how each party views the situations surrounding the conflict.

 A well-known conflict resolution and culture expert, Avruch, refers to culture as “the socially transmitted values, beliefs and symbols that are more or less shared by members of a social group, and by means of which members interpret and make meaningful their experience and behavior (including the behavior of 'others')”.[1] Although there are many definitions for culture, this essay shall use this particular definition because it underscores that culture effects how its “members” interpret the world around them i.e. other groups, individuals, conflicts etc. In addition, it points out that a social group is united in its values, which can defer greatly from the values of a different group – we will discuss later how cultural values can be opposite in different social groups.

It is important to explore further the topic of culture and its effect on diplomacy because there are many areas that involve different cultures interacting with one another. Track One diplomacy is one activity where cross-cultural interaction is at the core. This type of diplomacy is what comes to the mind when one thinks of foreign relations: diplomats meet with their counterparts in different states to solve problems that effect both of their nations. Anouther activity with cross-cultural interaction at its core is Track Two diplomacy. Track Two diplomacy has many definitions, but for the purpose of this paper it will be defined as “unofficial dialogues, often facilitated by an impartial Third Party and involving individuals with some connections to their respective official communities, focused on co-operative efforts to explore new ways to resolve problems or differences over policy-relevant issues.”[2] It is important to note the author’s emphasis on the third party, which is missing in other definitions of Track Two, because the role of third party is crucial in Track Two.

In Track Two workshops, the third party usually brings representatives of two or more sides of the conflict in order to discuss issues and out-of-the-box solutions, which the third party hopes will be used by their respective leaderships to solve the crisis. The parties discuss issues, come up with possible solutions and usually create a jointly written paper to introduce their ideas to their respective leaders or governments. The parties in conflict can be from the same state and culture or they can be from different states or cultures: for example, the negotiations regarding enriched uranium between Iranians and Americans. Thus the third party needs to be aware of the cultural differences between the two parties and/or between itself and the participants in order to run to a productive workshop.

The first section of this essay will shall briefly discuss the different patterns of culture in order to conceptualize the general differences between them. The second section shall focus on the case of Iran in particular by discussing cultural values, communication style and political realities. The third section will briefly discus the role of third party in Track Two workshops. The fourth section will argue that the role of third party in Track Two needs to change when dealing with Iranian participants in order to account for their cultural values and cultural communication style.

PART I – Patterns of Culture

In her article “Culture and Negotiation: Symmetrical Anthropology for Negotiators”, Jayne Seminare Docherty argues against the dismissal of culture or simplifying it to a list of do’s and don’ts.[3] She believes that “a more sophisticated approach to culture in negotiation involves identifying patterns or types of cultures by studying a large group of cultures.”[4] Although some may believe that this type of conceptualization of cultures comes too close to generalization, which may be as dangerous as ignoring culture altogether, the author of this essay holds that there is some merit to identifying patters of culture. It is useful to think in these terms because it helps to grasp a broad understanding of how different cultural lens may be, rather than focusing on nitty-gritty differences that may be meaningless in the broad scheme of things.

The patterns of culture are usually represented as dichotomies. The ones this essay shall focus on are individualism vs. collectivism or high context vs. low context. The first dichotomy has been used in social sciences for close to a century.[5] Consequently, this dichotomy is well defined. It characterizes the individualist cultures by it's focus on: cost benefit analyses; positive attitude towards confrontation; focus on personal achievement; self-reliance; pleasure; competition; and horizontal relationships.[6] On the other hand, collectivist cultures are characterized by group achievement, hierarchy/vertical relationships, family integrity, obedience, conformity, duty, self-sacrifice and negative attitude toward confrontation.[7] For the purpose of this essay, several points should be underlined from these characteristics that the third party should keep at the back of its mind. 

Firstly, individualist cultures view confrontation as good, because it is an opportunity for a positive change, from perhaps undesirable status quo. This is in stark contrast to the beliefs of those from collectivist cultures, for whom confrontation is negative. Thus they value harmony as more important. Consequently, conflict resolution is complicated when the two sides come from opposite patterns of culture. While one may attack the conflict with problem-solving and cost benefit attitude, the other is likely to shy away from interacting with them due to its emphasis on harmony. Thus it will be important for the third party to promote a safe environment in the workshop where both sides will feel at ease to participate and discuss their ideas - an atmosphere where one party will not dominate the other; otherwise, the workshop will not yield the desired results.

Secondly, individualist cultures tend to prioritize horizontal relationships over vertical relationships that collectivist cultures value.  Horizontal relationships are where the two parties have equal power or are on the same footing; whereas in vertical relationship one power dominates over the other. Although in conflict resolution setting representatives that come from either type of culture would have to respect their superiors and their directives, it is important to be aware of these distinctions in order to fully grasp how interactions on either side are likely to play out back home. For example, those who have greater respect for vertical relationships are less likely to go against those in power or suggest solutions that they know the leadership might not like. They are less likely to challenge the authority or their ideas. Thus the third party needs to be aware of this in order to understand why some participants are very hesitant to bring their innovative ideas back to their leadership.

  Lastly, conformity will be more important for the more collectivist party in the conflict. For this side, it might be harder than for their counterparts in an individualist culture to change social norms they have themselves or to incite change back at home. Thus in Track Two this might again result in an asymmetrical transfer of Track Two product from the two parties to their leadership. Thus it is important for the third party to be aware of this and mitigate it.

The other dichotomy that is interesting to explore is high context (HCC) and low context cultures (LCC). It is close to the individualist/collectivist dichotomy, but with more of a focus on interaction styles rather than values. LCC refers to “groups of cultures that value individual orientation, overt communication codes, and maintain a heterogeneous normative structure with low cultural demand/low cultural constraint characteristics.”[8] HCC refers to “groups of cultures that values group-identity orientation, covert communication codes and maintain a homogenous normative structure with high cultural demand/high cultural constraints.”[9] Some of LCC characteristics are “factual-inductive rhetoric”, “direct and confrontational stance,” “action and solution orientation”, “individual orientated”, “violations of individuals expectations create conflict potentials”, “explicit communication codes” and “open/direct strategies”.[10] Some of HCC characteristics are “affective-intuitive rhetoric”, “indirect and nonconfrontational stance”,  “relationship orientation”, “ group orientated”,  “violations of collective expectations create conflict potentials”, “implicit communication codes” and “ ambiguous/indirect strategies”.[11]            
             The above points are important for the third party to remember if they themselves come from a more individualist/LCC culture, while the participants come from a collectivist/HCC culture. For example, if the participants are leaning towards HCC then the third party should delegate more time to relationship building activities, which a third party from a LCC might not consider important. Furthermore, the third party needs to reconcile the explicit communication codes and open/direct strategies of LCC participants with possibly implicit communication codes and more ambiguous strategies of HCC participants. Otherwise, the participants of a LCC might be too aggressive and direct with their proposals, which the participants of a LCC might find domineering, ethnocentric or overbearing. Therefore, the third party should to mitigate the effects of these differences in cultural communications by spending some time at the beginning of the workshop to introduce basic differences in cultural communication styles of participants, ask the participants to be aware of them and respect them, and then lay down the ground rules for an appropriate communication style during the workshop.

PART II – Iran: Cultural communication style and political realities

           Iran tends to lean towards a collectivist, low-context culture. In in his 1980 publication "Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values", Geert H. Hofstede surveyed 100,000 IBM employees in 53 counties  and  developed his model of five cultural dimensions:  small vs. large power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance,  and long vs. short term orientation. [12] The scores were between 0 and 100.Iranians scored 58 for power distance, 59 for uncertainty avoidance, 43 for masculinity and 41 for individualism. This means that Iranians scored high for collectivism trait (59), which was discussed above. 
                Moreover, Hamid Yeganeh and Zhan Su did a study that explored the features of Iranian managerial culture by using Cultural Perspectives Questionnaire based on Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s framework. [13] Although the surveyed Iranian managerial culture is not necessarily representative of general population, it might be more representative of elite that usually take part in Track Two -since both  elites and managers come from elite background, deal with people and manage issues. With the range of 1-7, the mean score for collectivism was 6.02, which is very high.[14] The authors offered that this finding could mean that “social networking”, “personal connections” and “informal channels” are very important in the Iranian management.[15] Moreover, they argued that “Iranians from an early age learn to be careful about what they say and are advised to use an indirect language for expressing their intentions”. [16]  The Iranian managers also scored high on hierarchy orientation with the mean of 5.83, which again supports the collectivist cultural attributes discussed earlier.[17] A mean of 6.10 for past orientation dimension points to a preference for traditions and past, rather than change and modernity.[18] This finding was confirmed by John. W. Limbert, who is an American diplomat with 40 years of experience in Iranian affairs.[19] He argued that Iranian elites tend to remember their great power status, thus they prefer to focus on the past when “things were great”.[20]  Past orientation could explain the lack of progress in negotiations with Iran today. It is likely that they prefer to avoid rapid change that would come with negotiated paper agreement and prefer to focus on slow, overtime building relationship with USA. Anouther interesting dimension was good and evil orientation where Iranian managers scored a relatively moderate mean of 4.56, which means “respondents view human beings slightly wicked.” [21] The authors interpreted results as an illustration of high level of mistrust in Iranian society, especially towards the outside world.[22] This finding also plays in with Limbert’s argument that Iranians have victimization complex where they always feel as if they are being taken advantage of. [23] Indeed, in his experience, Iranians have a “tendency to revisit and reopen issues that both sides thought have been resolved” in effort to try to get a better deal for themselves because “they are obsessed about being cheated and exploited by others”. [24] The study concluded that “Iranian management culture is characterized by highly traditional values such as “collectivism, past orientation, hierarchical distance and evil orientation expressed in terms of mistrust and conspiracy.”[25]  Limbert’s argument that Iranian managers have a victimization complex echoes the conclusions in the Japanese business manual on how to negotiate with Iranians that set out the following as elements of “Iranian psyche”: “individualistic, proud, value what’s inside, hospitality, merchant at heart,… anti-establishment tendencies and victimization complex.”[26] Understandably, their victimization complex can be highly frustrating the other side thus the third party should act to mitigate this issue by encouraging discussion away from roundabout topics.

In his workshop paper “Negotiating with Iran”, Jerrold D. Green added the following Iranian attributes to the list: “feeling of international isolation,… energetically resist bullying, have an idiosyncratic but strong felt sense of justice, prefer consensus to conflict, reluctance to make decisions, overlapping decision-making centers with inadequate authority” .[27] Thus it is fair to say that the elites in Iran fit more in the category of collectivist and high context culture. Before fully exploring the implications of the above characteristics for the role of the third party in Track Two with Iranians, it is also necessary for the third party to be aware of political realities in Iran that will also shape the interaction of Iranians within the Track Two workshops.

            Those who negotiate with Iranians need to understand that they are as constrained by political realities at home as much as anyone else. Moreover, it is important to understand that the ordinary Iranians view of nuclear energy issue differently from their ruling elites. In his article “Nuclear Fetishism, the Fear of the ‘Islamic’ Bomb and National Identity in Iran,” Manuchehr Sanadjian gives an interesting description of the political reality surrounding the enriched uranium issue. He describes the ruling elites in Iran as “the Muslim rulers” that are completely dissociated from the ordinary Iranians.[28]  For the Muslim rulers to solidify their power, they presented “the enriched uranium as a national product” in order to mediate “the ordinary Iranians’ desire [for nuclear energy]” and “to forge a mediated identity with them” by producing what the Iranians demanded.[29] Iranians wanted nuclear energy due to their “quest for equality…equality among global consumers to appropriate a global product” and they “could not accept the international call for them to be excluded from the consumption of nuclear energy” that was used by so many other countries.[30] Thus there is support from the ordinary Iranians for nuclear energy, but not for nuclear weapons. In addition, it is unclear if “the Iranians are willing to pay for the program’s continuation in terms of sanctions, loss of investment confidence, capital flight, and estrangement from international community”.[31] This is an important reality to keep in mind when discussing the enriched uranium issue with the representatives of the Islamic Republic.

            Second political reality to keep in mind when negotiating with Iran is the attributes of the Supreme Leader Khamenei. He is distrustful of and paranoid about US intentions and strongly opposes Israel. He believes in social justice, promotion of Islam and political independence via economic and technological self-sufficiency.[32] Consequently, he views the full enrichment cycle as a solution for “Iran’s scientific retardation” that would ensure Iran’s political sovereignty.[33] Since it is impossible (and likely unproductive) to invite Khamenei to a Track Two workshop, it is best to invite those who can somewhat influence him: either members of Strategic Council on Foreign Relations or his closest advisors Ayatollahs Safi Golpayegani, Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, Ali Akbar Velayati  or Kamal Kharrazi.[34]

Third political reality is the existence of three political clusters within Iranian politics: the conservative/Jihadi cluster that is now in power, the reformist/Ijtihadi cluster that was in power from 1997-2005, and the centrist/pragmatist cluster that was in power 1989-1997.[35] All of them still exist and sometimes these clusters work together on certain issues, but they engage in power struggles over others. For instance, the pragmatists view nuclear capability as “a bargaining chip with the United States” in order to create greater economic integration with the rest of the world, while the conservative/Ijtihadi want to acquire nuclear weapon capabilities in order use it as “an equalizer with the United States” to “preserve Iran’s sovereignty”.[36] Thus for the third party it is important to invite representatives from each cluster, but have more participants from the ruling cluster. It is also important for it to be aware of these views in order to better mitigate any disputes between the representatives of different political clusters.

PART III - Third Party’s Role

Herbert C. Kelman believes that the role of third party is to “try to facilitate a process whereby solutions will emerge out of the interaction between the parties themselves.  The task of the third party is to provide the setting, create the atmosphere, establish the norms, and offer the occasional interventions that make it possible for such a process to evolve.”[37] In addition, it “sets the ground rules and monitors adherence to them; it helps to keep the discussion moving in constructive directions, tries to stimulate movement, and intervenes as relevant with questions, observations, and even challenges.”[38] The third party should not take sides or participate substantially in the discussion; instead, its interventions should focus on “the content of discussion” such as summarizing or clarifying, “the process of interaction”, or on “theoretical formulations” by “offering concepts that might be useful in clarifying issues under discussion”.[39]

However,  as the purpose of Track Two workshops varies the role of third party varies accordingly. For example, sometimes the primary reason for workshop’s creation is to promote communication between the parties in conflict, which hopefully (but not necessarily) will create environment where solutions can be developed that will incite some positive change from the status quo of the conflict. In fact, some argue that there is nothing wrong with the idea of a “talking shop” since the purpose of it is to talk things out when the official processes may have stalled.[40] However, Kelman argues that it should be a particular type of communication with a “specific political purpose”, which is “to contribute to creating a political environment conductive to conflict resolution and to transformation of the relationship between the conflict parties” by generating certain outputs into the political process and political debate.[41] Thus a third party with more ambitious goals is likely to structure the workshop and its outputs in way that it thinks will reach and have an effect on the political process, rather than just believing it will happen naturally.

Lastly, the role of third party is to serve as a repository of trust for the all of the participants by “enabling them to proceed with assurance that their confidentiality will be respected and their interests protected”.[42]

Part IV – Third Party and Iranian Participants in Track Two workshops

We turn now to explore the impact the Iran’s culture should have on the role of third party in Track Two workshops if they begin involving Iran and America. As demonstrated earlier, Iran tends to lean towards a collectivist, low-context culture; whereas America would lean towards an individualist, high-context culture. Therefore, the third party is responsible for providing an environment in which the representatives of Iran could feel at ease enough to contribute constructively to the process.

First of all, the third party needs to be aware that harmony is important for Iranians. It does not mean that Iranians will be pushovers in order to avoid a conflict, but it does mean they will not respond well to an aggressive, to the point and businesslike sort of communication.  This is evidenced by Iranians’ desire to discuss matters in more general and vague terms from the outset of any discussions.[43] This is likely done to set the mood for their desired type of communication. Considering that American participants are likely to be armed with more knowledge and power in a bilateral workshop, it is not surprising that Iranians cannot compete with them on the same level and thus retreat to general concepts in order to level the playing field. Iranians need for justice and leveled playing field should be respected, but in confined terms. For example, the third party should allocate a certain amount of time to hear such thoughts at the beginning of each meaning. In order to prevent any endless rhetoric, the third party should allocate a set time. This will show Iranians that their needs were considered when creating the agenda for the workshop, but it will also constrain the amount they are allowed to talk about general subjects and avoid dealing with the specific issues.

Second of all, as mentioned earlier, the third party needs to devote some time at the beginning of the workshop to point out the differences in the basic cultural communication styles of Americans and Iranians. Although it is likely that the participants are already vaguely aware of these differences from their previous experiences, it is important for the third party to point them out, ask the participants to be aware of them and respect them before laying out the ground rules for an appropriate communication style during the workshop. By doing this, the third party will negate the Iranians’ feelings of being bullied since they will be more apt to understand that it’s a difference in communication style, not necessarily an uncompromising stance on the issue. Furthermore, the American participants will be less likely to get as frustrated with long, general concept driven discussions and understand that it is not meant to dodge the issue but is part of Iranian communication style. At the very least, this introduction to different cultural communication styles should  breed more understanding between the parties and ease any potential communication frustrations.

            Thirdly, the third party should organize the workshop in a manner that will appease Iranians' need for relationship-building, social networking and building of personal connections. The third party should set a time for relationship building between the participants. Most of Track Two workshops are already addressing this since they are organized in order to open communication channels between parties in conflict. Consequently, it will not be surprising if Track Two diplomacy finds more success than Track One diplomacy as far as the relations between Iranians and Americans are concerned. Indeed, Iranians’ aversion to dry negotiations focused around hammering out of legal documents, in which they often feel cheated, is likely to push them to being more receptive of Track Two workshops. Moreover, the relationship building with Iranians will help Americans to demystify their image of Iran, which is crucial in order to rear amicable relations between the two nations.

            Fourthly, the third party should insure that Americans are aware of all the political realities in Iran that were mentioned earlier. American negotiators need to understand that there is support from ordinary citizens for nuclear energy, but they may not be fully aware of all the economic implications. In addition, it is highly unlikely to that anyone who participates from the workshop will be able to change Khamenei mind about the enrichment of uranium by any moral arguments. Thus Americans need to be prepared to compromise, rather than go in expecting to dictate and to intimidate. Moreover, they need to be aware of the different political clusters in Iran and how they work with or against each other on different issues. Since Americans did not have open access to Iran for a while due to their own political decisions, they may not be as aware of the broad-spectrum of political realities in Iran. Lack of this understanding can create false expectations from the Track Two workshop or its potential. Thus the third party needs to brief Americans on the political realities in Iran and brief Iranians on the political realities in America.

Part V – Conclusion

            This essay set out to explore how the third party’s role in Track Two with Iranians should change in light of Iran’s culture and political realities. Although the above mentioned suggestions should be considered by the third party when creating a workshop involving Iranians, they are meant to be used at the discretion of the third party based on its knowledge of the participants involved. For instance, if the third party believes that a private time for socializing might contribute negatively to the process, it is up to the third party to make a judgement call. These judgement calls are to be expected in Track Two workshops. The third party needs to have a good understanding of the differences in cultural communication styles of participants in order to adjust the agenda to best suit the workshop’s purpose. At the same time, there should never be a strictly defined framework as to how to deal with certain cultural communication styles because a lot depends on its particular participants. Indeed, some Iranian participants may not put so much emphasis on the relationship building or a discussion about values. Consequently, Track Two will always be more an art than science, because defined frameworks are not suitable for this field.  However, at the same time, it is still useful to consider cultural differences and try to offset them since cultural misunderstandings do happen. Since they can be detrimental to the Track Two workshop, the third party needs to understand and prevent them in order to insure the workshop's’ success.

Works Cited

Avruch, Kevin. “Culture as Context, Culture as Communication: Considerations for Humanitarian Negotiations, An Annual Meeting.” (May 12-14, 2003) available at www.hdcentre.org/Programmes/hnnetwork/archive.

Chew, Pat K. The Conflict and Culture Reader. New York: New York UP, 2001. Print.

Hofstede, Geert H. “Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations.” 2nd Edition, (Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001).

Davies, John, and Edy Kaufman. Second Track/citizens' Diplomacy: Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Print.

Docherty, Jayne Seminare. "Culture and Negotiation: Symmetrical Anthropology for Negotiators." Djalal, Hasjim, and Townsend-Gault, Ian. “Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea. Informal Diplomacy for Conflict Prevention”.

Marquette Law Review 87 (2004): 711-22. Web.

Green, Jerrold D., Frederic M. Wehrey, and Charles Wolf. Understanding Iran. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. Print.

Jones, Peter. “Canada and Track Two Diplomacy.” (Toronto: The Canadian International Council, 2008).

Jones, Peter. “How to Negotiate with Iran,” Working Paper, Foreign Policy (7 Apr.2009).

Kelman, Herbert C. "The Role of the Scholar-Practitioner in International Conflict Resolution." International Studies Perspectives 1.3 (2000): 273-87. Web.

Limbert, John W. “Negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran: Raising the Chances of Success- Fifteen Points to Remember.” United States Institute of Peace: Special Report 199 (January 2008): 1-15.

Sanadjian, Manuchehr. "Nuclear Fetishism, the Fear of the 'Islamic' Bomb and National Identity in Iran." Social Identities 14.1 (2008): 77-100. Web.

Stern, Paul C., and Daniel Druckman. International Conflict Resolution after the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: National Academy, 2000. Print.

Yeganeh, Hamid, and Zhan Su. "Comprehending Core Cultural Orientations of Iranian Managers." Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 14.4 (2007): 336-53. Web.

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[1] Kevin Avruch, “Culture as Context, Culture as Communication: Considerations for Humanitarian Negotiations, An Annual Meeting,” (May 12-14, 2003) available at www.hdcentre.org/Programmes/hnnetwork/archive.

[2] Peter Jones, “Canada and Track Two Diplomacy,” (Toronto: The Canadian International Council, 2008): 5.

[3] Jayne Seminare Docherty, “Culture and Negotiation: Symmetrical Anthropology for Negotiators,” Marquette Law Review 87 (2004): 713.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Harry C. Triandis, Christopher McCusker, and C.Harry Hui, “Chapter 10: Multimethod Probes of Individualism and Collectivism,” The Conflict and Culture Reader (New York: University Press, 2001): 52.

[6] Ibid 52-55.

[7] Ibid 52-55.

[8] Stella Ting-Toomey, “Chapter 9: Toward a Theory of Conflict and Culture,” The Conflict and Culture Reader (New York: University Press, 2001): 46.

[9] Ibid 46.

[10] Ibid 51.

[11] Ibid 51.

[12] Geert H., Hofstede, “Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations,” 2nd Edition, (Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001).

[13]Hamid Yeganeh and Zhan Su, “Comprehending Core Cultural Orientations of Iranian Managers,” Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 14:4 (2007): 336.

[14] Ibid 340.

[15] Ibid 342.

[16]Ibid 342.

[17] Ibid 343.

[18] Ibid 344.

[19] John W., Limbert, “Negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran: Raising the Chances of Success- Fifteen Points to Remember,” United States Institute of Peace: Special Report 199 (January 2008): 5.

[20] Ibid 5.

[21] Hamid Yeganeh and Zhan Su, “Comprehending Core Cultural Orientations of Iranian Managers,” Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 14:4 (2007): 346.

[22] Ibid 346

[23] John W., Limbert, “Negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran: Raising the Chances of Success- Fifteen Points to Remember,” United States Institute of Peace: Special Report 199 (January 2008): 6.

[24] Ibid 42.

[25] Hamid Yeganeh and Zhan Su, “Comprehending Core Cultural Orientations of Iranian Managers,” Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 14:4 (2007): 350.

[26] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “Iran’s Negotiating Style,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 43.

[27] Jerrold D Green, “Negotiating with Iran,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009):85.

[28] Manuchehr Sanadjian, “Nuclear Fetishism, the Fear of the ‘Islamic’ Bomb and National Identity in Iran,” Social Identities 14:1 (January 2008):

[29] Ibid 79.

[30] Ibid 87.

[31] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “Factional Dynamics at Work: The Nuclear Case Study,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 30.

[32] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “Iran’s Political Landscape: Individuals and Institutions,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 9.

[33] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “Factional Dynamics at Work: The Nuclear Case Study,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 29.

[34] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “Iran’s Political Landscape: Individuals and Institutions,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 11.

[35] Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey, and Charles Wolf, Jr., “The Elite’s Political Culture: Factionalism and Informality,” Understanding Iran (RAND Corporation, 2009): 27.

[36] Ibid 32.

[37] Helbert Kelman, “Interactive Problem Solving as a Tool for Second Track Diplomacy,” John Davies and Edy Kaufman,  Second Track/Citizens' Diplomacy : Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003): 8.

[38] Herbert C., Kelman, “The Role of the Scholar-Practitioner in International Conflict Resolution,” International Studies Perspective (2000): 276.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Hasjim Djalal and Ian Townsend-Gault, “Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea. Informal Diplomacy for Conflict Prevention,” 129.

[41] Helbert Kelman, “Interactive Problem Solving as a Tool for Second Track Diplomacy,” John Davies and Edy Kaufman,  Second Track/Citizens' Diplomacy : Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003): 82.

[42] Ibid 91.

[43] Peter Jones, “How to Negotiate with Iran,” Working Paper, Foreign Policy (7 Apr.2009): 2.

[44] Rouhana, N.N., “Interactive Conflict Resolution: Issues in Theory, Methodology, and Evaluation,” in International Conflict Resolution after the Cold War, Druckman, D., and P.C. Stern, (eds.) (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000)