their governments to pursue such a track in the negotiation process that would ensure the protection of the publicly perceived national interests of the country . Hence the leaders should find an effective way to communicate with their domestic public to ensure the public support of the negotiation process launched and signal to other participants of the negotiation process such messages that would help to move the negotiation process forward . That is why the impact of the declared positions of the leaders on the conflict resolution process should be carefully examined and is a focus of this article .
Conflict resolution can be defined as a phased , multi-layered and multidimensional process involving different numbers of participants ( Deutsch 1973 , 56 ). Conflict resolution can be bilateral which means that it can involve two conflicting parties in the resolution of the conflict ( India-Pakistan peace process ). The conflict resolution can also be in a multilateral form which means that some third party such as a state or an international organization will be involved in the conflict resolution process ( Serbia-Kosovo peace process ). Sometimes the conflict resolution process can be openly multilateral when the third party is openly and directly involved in the process . However , in some cases , the conflict resolution process is not multilateral , when third party or parties significantly impact the conflict resolution process , but do not openly and directly participate in it ( Deutsch 1973 , 48 ).
In academia , there are three main phases of conflict resolution identified : the pre-negotiation phase , negotiation phase and post-negotiation phase ( Saudners 1985 , 249 ). During the pre-negotiation phase , the sides of the conflict seek to build trust and make all of them more dependent on each other so as to limit the capability of one party of the conflict to act unilaterally and harm the others . This helps to put the conflict on a hold for at least some period of time and start to find common grounds for reaching a resolution of the conflict . The main objectives of the pre-negotiation phase are to define the actors who are going to take part in the actual negotiation process , the time and location of the meeting , discussing and defining the agenda of the meeting and the level of the negotiations ( Saudners 1985 , 260 ).
Negotiation is defined as a process in which the conflicting parties are discussing the common and conflicting interests directly with each other and try to reach a compromise taking into account the concerns and interests of all of the parties involved in the conflict ( Brigg 2008 , 68 ). Negotiation is considered to be an important tool in peacemaking that gives a possibility to avoid the use of force . The crucial part of a negotiation process is that none of the conflicting sides will get all
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