Prof. Dr. Sami Faltas at the Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU). 04-11-2019
From left to right: Prof. Faltas, Veronica Merlo, Madeleine Hall (interns), Kent Blaeser (database manager) and Cornelis Hulsman (director)
On Monday, November 4th, the team of the Center for Arab-West Understanding gathered to attend a presentation on the practice of diplomatic negotiations by Professor Dr. Sami Faltas.
Originally from Egypt, Dr. Sami Faltas has lived most of his life in the Netherlands. With a background in Social and Political Sciences, Dr. Faltas specialized in civil-military relations, security-sector reform, political negotiations and Middle Eastern studies. He is currently freelancing as an adviser or trainer on SSR, DDR, gender and political negotiations.
His overview of essential elements at the basis of diplomatic negotiation at the Center for Arab-West Understanding stimulated a number of reflections on the challenges as well as possible outcomes of professional negotiations specifically across different cultures. Precisely, Dr. Faltas focused on two main topics strictly interconnected. Firstly, he outlined how professional negotiations work and he then moved to the more specific analysis of major challenges in the negotiation process such as misunderstandings. The lecture concluded with an open discussion with the attendees which included references to concrete examples of negotiation strategies.
