Information Processing and Outcome Forecasting for Multilateral Negotiations: Testing One Approach,

Abstract

Multilateral negotiations generate enormous amounts of written materials, which resemble useful information in about the same way that iron ore resembles steel. The processing of those materials into useful information involves extraction of data, its storage and reduction to summary indicators of trends in bargaining, participants' positions on key issues, and so forth. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a data base management system for multilateral negotiations. The system was used by CNA's Law of the Sea (LOS) Project to provide analytic support to U.S. Navy and other U.S. government negotiators at the United Nations Law of the Sea negotiations, in both the Seabed Committee and later, the LOS Conference. The paper will principally report the results of two tests, designed by the author, to determine the reliability of the project's thematic content analysis and policy-scaling techniques. The content analysis test was given to two groups of graduate students, one an ocean policy seminar, the other a class on research methods.

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