Around the world, negotiation is the only tool people have to make collective decisions when there must be unanimity. Like any other social activity, negotiation exhibits both universal patterns determined by the finite possibilities of its nature and local variations determined by cultural practices. Universalities predominate if one digs deep enough, and peculiarities abound in surface manifestations. International Negotiation investigates how deep is deep enough, and how shallow the surface, and attempts to find the meeting line. As more and more individuals meet around the negotiation...

This study by the leading Japanese specialist in the field offers a comprehensive analysis of the deterioration of Soviet-Japanese relations in the 1970s and 1980s -- a period when the two countries clashed over issues ranging from military security to fishing rights and their competing claims to the southern Kuriles, Japan's "Northern Territories," awarded to Stalin at Yalta.

Why has the stalemate in Japanese-Russian relations persisted through the end of the Cold War and Moscow's weakening control over its far eastern territories? In this volume Kimura continues his comprehensive analysis of Russia and Japan's strained and unstable relations to the present day.