Stepping Out of the Tracks: Cooperation Between Official Diplomats and Private Facilitators

Intermediary cooperation - encompassing various levels of communication, coordination, and collaboration - is necessary to realize the inherent complementarity of many official and private intermediary efforts. Effective negotiation between the intermediaries is necessary to achieve such cooperation. Official and private intermediaries must be willing to "come to the table" and, once there, they must be able to negotiate effectively. The article builds on existing research on complementarity and cooperation by focusing explicitly on the communication and relationships between intermediaries and applying negotiation theory to analyze opportunities for and barriers to cooperation.