THE STRATEGIC POWER OF LANGUAGE IN DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS

Abstract

Realist scholars say that material power - the size of a country's army or economy – have strong effect on global stage as well as decides the outcomes of diplomatic negotiations. In this view, language is seemed just decoration, however this paper argues that language is not decoration, it is an important factor on its own and plays a crucial role to solve problems or come to compromise. The paper uses Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to compare three historical cases: the talks before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and the negotiations that produced the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA). The comparison shows that unclear, vague language made the Iraq-Kuwait crisis more dangerous wheras in the other two cases, careful and flexible language helped the sides reach an agreement. The paper ends with practical lessons for diplomats and is honest about the limits of a study based on only three cases