ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of power within humanitarian negotiations. It advances and substantiates the claim presented throughout practitioner literature that humanitarians typically negotiate with armed groups from a position of weakness, undermining the principles to which they are committed and forcing them to negotiate that which they consider to be non-negotiable. It draws on existing literature and other fields of negotiation scholarship to identify key elements that lead to this power asymmetry. This chapter also offers a multi-dimensional conceptualization of power that consists of power as both a possession and a resource.
