Scholars from different academic disciplines have studied conflict and negotiations over the past centuries going back to ancient times2. This holds not only for Western societies but for the world at large. Whether highly developed with codified norms and written rules or nomadic and based on narrative culture, societies tried to make sense of conflict and attempted to develop conflict resolution methods.
Historians, lawyers and scholars of the natural sciences like biologists have and continue to contribute to the understanding of conflict. They are not included in this discussion. The goal of this paper is to discuss the contribution of social and economic science scholars to conflict and negotiation theory since WWII and to map their contribution over this limited time line.