Two Years After the Arab Uprisings: US Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Tamara Cofman Wittes is a senior fellow and the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Dr. Wittes served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs from November of 2009 to January 2012.Presented on February 28, 2013 from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm in the Wardlaw Center - Gordy Room.Runtime: 75:05 minutes.Ray Davis Memorial Fund Lecture

Beyond the Arab awakening : a strategic assessment of the Middle East

Tamara Cofman Witte

Europe, the United States, and Middle Eastern democracy : repairing the breach

Tamara Cofman Wittes; Richard Young

Economic and political development report : Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Tamara Cofman Wittes and Isobel Colema

Time to Agree

This article explores the impact of time pressure on negotiation processes in territorial conflicts in the post-cold war era. While it is often argued that time pressure can help generate positive momentum in peace negotiations and help break deadlocks, extensive literature also suggests that perceived time shortage can have a negative impact on the cognitive processes involved in complex, intercultural negotiations. The analysis explores these hypotheses through a comparison of sixty-eight episodes of negotiation using fuzzy-set logic, a form of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The conclusions confirm that time pressure can, in certain circumstances, be associated with broad agreements but also that only low levels of time pressure or its absence are associated with durable settlements. The analysis also suggests that the negative effect of time pressure on negotiations is particularly relevant in the presence of complex decision making and when a broad range of debated issues is at stake