Trade negotiations: teaching consensus

Helen Hawthorne

Review of International Political Economy, 2022, vol. 29, issue 6, 2159-2173

Abstract: International negotiations, particularly in international organisations with a large number of members, can be long and fraught. Reaching consensus between a large number of countries is not an easy task and this point is often ignored in news reports relating to international negotiations. This article argues that when teaching students about the conduct of international negotiations, their understanding can be greatly enhanced by the use of active learning techniques such as role playing, simulations and games. However, much of the literature describes simulations which take time to prepare and are often run over several hours or days. This article argues that we need to develop shorter, seminar length simulations which students can relate to in order to help their understanding of the issues and processes around negotiations. Highlighting the consensus process in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and drawing on experience of teaching students about the WTO, this article elaborates a seminar length exercise which can be used to illustrate some of the negotiation processes in the WTO while at the same time teaching students about the process and difficulties of consensus building with a familiar scenario.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2021.2005661 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:29:y:2022:i:6:p:2159-2173

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rrip20

DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2021.2005661

Access Statistics for this article

Review of International Political Economy is currently edited by Gregory Chin, Juliet Johnson, Daniel Mügge, Kevin Gallagher, Ilene Grabel and Cornelia Woll

More articles in Review of International Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().