ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the societies marked with fragmentation and miscommunication; diplomatic approaches to conflict resolution rarely yield lasting results and apparently must be supplemented by other approaches. Thus, it is crucial to look at internal conflicts within political and multidimensional frameworks that take into account social, economic and historical factors. It explains political concepts such as identity, recognition, political access, legitimacy, power, interest, consensus, compromise and conflict. These concepts need to be fully integrated into negotiation analysis, in order to better understand the contexts in which deadlock can arise. Deadlock would be very likely if one or all of the participants in multilateral negotiations are to view the negotiations as primarily zero-sum. Basic human needs of identity, recognition and security are often the least negotiable, so if a protracted social conflict (PSC), such as the Nagorno-Karabakh (N-K) conflict, is defined in terms of identity/secession, then finding a common solution can prove very difficult.
