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Simulation & Gaming:
An Interdisciplinary Journal

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Starkey Blake article

without title, abstract and keywords

Title: ________________________________

Brigid A. Starkey

Elizabeth L. Blake

University of Maryland

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For the past fifty years, both scholars and practitioners of international relations have used simulations to model real-world environments.  Simulations can be conducted as experimental tools to allow researchers to develop and test theories of decision-making and other processes.  Simulations can also be used as predictive tools to help policy makers weigh various outcomes.  Finally, simulations can be used as educational tools to help student participants understand the way the international system works and to apply decision-making theory to the solution of real world problems.[1]  While the reasons for simulating the international system have remained relatively constant over time, the types and structures of these simulations have changed dramatically since 1950, owing in part to shifts in theory and politics during that period. Of particular interest is the role that technology has played in fostering innovation in the design and delivery of simulation exercises for educational purposes.

Although the use of simulations for research purposes has declined since the 1950s and 1960s[2], the use of international relations (IR) simulations for teaching purposes has rapidly expanded, with representations becoming more complex owing to the technology-mediated tools available.  In education, simulations give students the opportunity to learn experientially and have been shown to “develop different skills from [conventional] classroom teaching-especially those of being imaginative and innovative” (Winham, 1991: 417).  Such exercises place participants in roles and require them to overcome various obstacles in their pursuit of goals (Wolcott, 1980:1).  Simulations of the international system can create worldwide laboratories for learners, helping them to gain understanding of the complexity of key issues

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AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors would like to thank Tim Wedig for his research and editorial assistance, and Victor Assal, Elizabeth Kielman, and Jonathan Wilkenfeld for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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(Starkey and Wilkenfeld, 1996:25) by navigating the international system from the perspective of real-world decision-makers. [3]

This article will focus on the educational applications of simulations in international relations, first reviewing the development of IR simulations and then tracing this history by examining the International Communication and Negotiation Simulations Project at the University of Maryland (Starkey & Wilkenfeld, 1996), as a representative example of this genre.  We will focus in particular on the use of information technologies in facilitating and delivering simulations.  Finally, we will conclude with a brief discussion of how computer-assisted simulations have actually anticipated trends in the real world of diplomacy and what simulations must do to accurately reflect real world trends.

The roots of international relations simulations

Simulations in international relations have their origins in war gaming.  Militaries have long used simulations to train officers in battlefield decision-making and tactics and to test strategies and develop battle plans.[4]  The tradition of simulation in international relations has benefited greatly from the close relationship between the foreign policy and military (strategic and policy) communities in the years following World War II.  In addition to shared research projects and public scholarship in professional journals, the communities learned from each other and built incrementally on early simulation and gaming exercises.  Guetzkow, for example, has reflected on the utility of the Rand Corporation’s early work on its POLEX simulations in his conceptualisation of the Inter-Nation Simulation, but notes that it was his interest in the social psychology of groups that led to his focus on simulating the interactions between the actors in the system (1963: 26, 1995: 454).  In that vein, Gredler distinguishes between “tactical-decision simulations” where participants interact with a complex situation (such as a crisis) and “social-system simulations” where participants interact with each other to drive the simulation forward (1994:104).  Both types of simulations are well represented in the discussion below.

Within the field of international relations, simulations have long been used to enhance the decision-making and negotiation skills of practicing professionals. Winham (1991: 411) traces the linking of negotiation and simulation to the early 1970s, when the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) used one-day negotiations as a training device.  Since then, a number of internationally-focused non-profit organizations and university programs have established specialization in international negotiation, using simulations as an important training tool.  The dual focus is very useful in developing negotiation skills for the many conflict resolution endeavours undertaken at the official and unofficial levels.[5] 

The educational use of simulations for non-practitioners has grown as a result of its success in a training context.  Some of the more well-known exercises for educational audiences have included the Model United Nations[6] and its many regional spin-offs, including Model Organization of African Unity (OAU), Model Organization of American States (OAS), and Model European Union (EU), as well as a host of other exercises representing various dimensions of international relations, including the Inter-Nation Simulation (Guetzkow, 1966), GLOBUS (Bremer, 1987), Diplomacy (Skidmore, 1993), Nations (Herzig and Skidmore, 1995), Global Problems (Lantis, 1996, 1998), and the International Communication and Negotiation Simulations (ICONS).  There are also many IR simulations that have been developed and offered on a smaller scale - sometimes to individual classes or between colleagues on a few different campuses.  Examples of these exercises, such as “Crisis,” “Grand Strategy,” and “SALT II,” were presented in Walcott’s Simple Simulations (1976 and 1980).  Additional examples appeared in a series of articles in Foreign Policy Analysis Notes in the early 1990s, including “The 1990 Middle East Crisis: A Role-Playing Simulation,” (Caldwell, 1991) and  “Potential U.S. Intervention in Peru: A Simulation” (Moreno, 1992). A more recent collection can be found in Lantis, Kuzma, and Boehrer (2000).  It is difficult to establish a comprehensive list of simulations, as they have been presented in such a wide variety of publications and forums over such a long period of time.[7]

These simulations have in common their effort to re-create important aspects of the international system - from the tools and levers available to state and non-state actors in the system - to the many connections between issues of concern in the international arena.  However, there are also important differences in their approaches, highlighting the competing theoretical approaches to international relations of the realist and liberal-institutional schools.   “Diplomacy,” for example, stresses alliance behaviour in illustrating the zero-sum relationships between states, while “Nations” and “Global Problems” illustrate non-zero sum aspects of relations as well, including trade and aid endeavours (Skidmore, 1993: 49-50).  The Chlorine Game (full title: Global Management of Organochlorines) includes non-governmental actors and takes a collaborative problem-solving approach.[8]

Many of the exercises that have gained large followings over the past several decades, whether they be crisis-oriented or not, focus on the international negotiation arena as the simulation environment.[9]  This leads to the question of why negotiation in particular lends itself to simulation activity. The answer can be found in diplomacy’s inherent focus on process, for example, joint problem-solving endeavours that are a cornerstone of successful negotiations.  By nature, diplomatic negotiation involves iteration, with opportunities to learn by doing and then implementing this learning in the following round of negotiations.  Knowledge gained in one situation or episode can be applied to negotiations at other times - with the same counterpart(s) or on the same issue-area.  Knowledge in relation to the issue-area(s) at stake in the negotiations grows, as does the cognitive complexity of participants who must deal with the inter-relatedness of their many concerns. [10] The phases of negotiation and the sub-processes so central to its success can be successfully modelled in simulation exercises, including strategic decision-making, bargaining, caucusing, decision-making,  and debriefing.[11]  There is also ample opportunity to model the cultural aspects of international negotiation, with its emphasis on different frameworks for viewing key concepts such as cooperation and interest convergence (Cohen, 1997, and Crookall and Arai, 1995).

The role of technology

The growth of computer technology following World War II has greatly affected the way simulations are conducted and delivered.  This has been particularly striking in the research simulation context.  A simulation starts with the specification of initial conditions (parameters bounding the simulated world), a set of actors, and rules for interaction between the actors.  Before computers, the only way to generate outputs was to use humans to process and act upon the simulation inputs.  While mathematical models could be used by a control team, to provide continuing inputs as the simulation progressed, these models were necessarily limited in their complexity because of calculating difficulties.  Person-machine hybrids, such as the Inter-Nation Simulation, took advantage of computers to automate various simulation functions, such as calculating outcomes resulting from various actions.

The goal of using all-computer simulations was to allow outcomes to be solely dependent on the initial conditions programmed into them.  This facilitated theory building by allowing researchers to formulate hypotheses derived from complex premises, to explore the effect of chance and model parameters on outcomes, and to permit replication (Guetzkow, 1995: 455 and P. Johnson, 1999: 1511).  With a sufficiently powerful computer, a researcher can develop and run an “arbitrarily complicated” model (P. Johnson, 1999: 1518).  Obviously, though, as human inputs have diminished, there is greater and greater distance between simulations conducted for research purposes and simulations conducted for educational purposes.  Guetzkow reflected on the use of the INS for both teaching and research purposes (1963:11), but the current literature on simulations tends to discuss their use either in the context of all-machine research simulations or all-person or person-machine educational simulations. [12]

As computers have become more powerful and less expensive, their use in education has become significantly greater.  Research-type simulations can be used within a classroom setting to give students the ability to track differences in outcomes that result from differences in inputs.  Barry Hughes’ International Futures simulation, which simulates global development issues and allows the exploration of alternative futures, is a good example of this. [13] However, in the absence of sophisticated artificial intelligence, computer simulations (as opposed to computer-assisted simulations) are not up to the task of teaching more than the most basic concepts in the field of international negotiation and decision-making.[14]  As Bates notes, “Humans are still much more able than machines to deal with uncertainty, with value-laden decision-making, and with complex problem-solving.  Thus, for educational purposes, it is essential to combine human-machine interaction and human-human interaction (2000: 41).”

Accordingly, a very significant development stems from the use of computers as a communication, not computational, tool: the ability to link human participants at distant locations to negotiate with each other. The earliest trials of “distributed” simulation exercises were performed by Professor Robert C. Noel of the University of California at Santa Barbara, who wanted to see whether the game would retain its essential elements if the participants were physically removed from one another. Working from a scenario dealing with nuclear proliferation issues and set in the Middle East circa 1973, the participating country‑teams in the POLIS simulations were students in undergraduate courses in international relations at various universities in California.  Although they were not sophisticated, these trials demonstrated the feasibility of distributed gaming exercises by showing that the dynamics of the interactions were not distorted by the medium of communication. (Wilkenfeld and Kaufman, 1993)

Accordingly, the most recent advance involves simulations and games delivered via the Internet.[15]   There are two particularly noteworthy trends in the Internet-simulation arena: (1) second generation exercises, built around the “computerization” of older, popular simulations and (2) a new breed of simulations that use technology to add previously unavailable dimensions to the simulation process.  These developments can be seen in the work of large-scale simulation groups, such as that of the Interactive Communications and Simulations Group (ICS) at the University of Michigan.[16]   ICS began to offer IR simulations in 1973, but shifted to mostly electronic delivery of exercises in the 1980s with the development of the CONFER computer-based system.  Guetzkow’s groundbreaking “Inter-Nation Simulation” (INS) was transformed more than once into a technology-delivered exercise, through Bremer’s work on “SIPER” and subsequently on “GLOBUS.”  The ICONS model is also based on an earlier model, the POLIS exercises, run by Noel out of the University of California system in the 1970s. 

            Improvements in the user-friendliness of computer systems have also had a dramatic effect on the use of computer-assisted simulations in education.  Computers are now seen as tools to be utilized across the entire range of disciplines, and universities have made a priority of integrating information technology into curricula outside of the hard sciences, giving rise to the growing field of ”instructional technology.”  The Teaching Theater program at the University of Maryland, for example, was instituted to enhance the learning experience through the use of state-of-the-art technology.[17]  Simulations, which can serve as experimental laboratories for social science students, are now much more accessible.

ICONS as an illustrative model

At the University of Maryland, home to the International Communication and Negotiation Simulations (ICONS) Project, the computer has been the vehicle for delivery since the earliest foreign policy exercises were conceived in the early 1980s.  Nevertheless, ICONS has still had to respond to advances in technology and to situational changes in the international system that have enhanced the importance of many new actors and issues in the global arena.  An examination of the course taken by ICONS over the past fifteen years reveals much about the role of IR simulations in the post-Cold War classroom, as the ongoing technology-led transformation of communications discourse changes the nature of both education and politics (Wilkenfeld and Kaufman, 1993; Starkey and Wilkenfeld, 1996; Blake and Morales, 1999). 

Development and structure

ICONS evolved out of the Program in Global Issues established at the University of Maryland in the early 1980s.  The purpose of the program was to teach students about the “interdependence of global issues and the behavioural interdependence of nations” using simulation methodology.  This was accomplished through participation in two distinct simulation activities: Hughes’ International Futures (IF) simulation and a foreign policy simulation based upon Noel’s POLIS Foreign Policy Simulations.  The focus of the POLIS exercise was on group decision-making in primarily conflicting situations, while the IF simulation served to illustrate the interdependence of global development issues (Wilkenfeld, 1983).

Originally, the ICONS foreign policy simulation was designed to illustrate “behavioural interdependence” and focused on primarily conflicting issues.[18]  As late as 1989, the list of conferences conducted during the simulation reflected a Cold War emphasis on power relationships.  Examples include START, NATO, Middle East, Sino-Soviet Summit, and Afghanistan (ICONS Project, 1989).  With the end of the Cold War, though, there has been a transformation in international relations, with what was called “low politics” becoming increasingly important elements of state interest.  In order to accurately reflect these trends, the ICONS simulation has evolved throughout the 1990s to encompass many of the issues in the IF simulations.  (Current exercises have sub-games focusing on issues such as global warming, public health, and the global trading system, in addition to traditional security topics such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.)  In so doing, the focus has shifted somewhat from simulating foreign policy interactions among states in conflict to simulating negotiations among states over issues that are not strictly zero-sum.  In developing scenarios, ICONS now focuses primarily on those problems where states have distinct differences in interests and capabilities, but where there are gains to be realized from cooperative action.

Despite these changes, ICONS simulations have retained the same basic form over time.  It is in the underlying design or “deep structure” (Gredler, 1994:12) of simulations that we find the connection of the exercise to aspects of the real world, for example, the diplomatic arena. Winham writes that the “advantage of using simulation to teach negotiation is that it promotes subjective understanding of negotiation processes that are difficult to convey through other methods” (1991:415). There are some aspects of negotiations, he goes on to say, that students are “not likely to understand fully until they have lived through them.”   This is certainly true of the complex process of reconciling preferences across many issues with single or multiple negotiation partners.   Simulation structures involve conceptual, role design, process, and procedural components.  The structure of an ICONS simulation is as follows: 

Conceptual: A scenario outlines the preliminary negotiation issues to be discussed, e.g. human rights, trade, and security, among others, and describes the simulation process.  Questions for discussion help to define the scope of the coming negotiations.

Role design: A class of students is assigned to play one or more country-teams in the simulation.  An “International System” simulation includes countries from all regions of the world, while various regionally based simulations (such as Europe, Africa, and the Americas) quite naturally include only countries from those regions. [19] An ICONS simulation includes 10 to 20 country-teams, and is facilitated by SIMCON (SIMulation CONtrol), who is responsible for administering the simulation and providing feedback to the students.

Process:  Preparation is the first step of the simulation process.  Since the scenario is only a brief overview, each country-team (class of students) must conduct research on the country whose decision-makers it has chosen to portray, as well as the issues to be negotiated, so that it will be able to develop national goals and strategies for the negotiations.  The negotiation phase of the simulation itself normally lasts from three to five weeks.  It is an interactive model, with students driving the pace and controlling the direction of the negotiations.   

Procedure: Participants in ICONS’ negotiations communicate in two ways, intended to mirror the kinds of interactions that negotiators have with each other in the real world.  The first involves sending statements or communiqués (asynchronous communications), mirroring day-to-day contact between states; the second revolves around real-time conferences or “summit meetings,” set at pre-established times and focused on a specific agenda (synchronous communications).  After the specified negotiation period, faculty members conduct debriefing exercises, with participants reflecting on goal achievement and lessons learned.

In the end, what is important is not the number of agreements reached, but increased student understanding of the process of international negotiation.  In fact, during debriefings, we often emphasize that the difficulty that the students have in hammering out international agreements shows how successful they have been in determining and acting upon their assigned country’s interests.  The ultimate effect of simulation participation, as Torney-Purta (1992, 1996) discusses, is supporting the development of more complex and sophisticated representations of the international system. Vavrina also notes that active learning promoted high levels of participation among his students and that ICONS  “works in no small measure because it is fun (1992: 57).”

Evolving technology

            The development of the ICONS Project since the 1980s also illustrates the influence of advances in information technology.   Until the mid-1990s, the software used to conduct the simulations was a variant of the original POLIS software (POLNET II), which was specially designed to support the pedagogical goals of the exercises.  Participants used telnet to link through ARPANET, NSFNET, or a commercial network to a server at the University of Maryland.  While POLNET II met the needs of simulation participants, it was not user‑friendly and required substantial training.  By 1995, the World Wide Web and related technologies made it possible for ICONS to provide users with an easy‑to‑use interface, coupled with accessibility from any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser.  After examining and testing some commercial communication packages, ICONS developed an entirely new software package, ICONSnet, [20] which replicates and enhances the essential features of POLNET II in a web‑based database application.[21]  The combination of ease of access and ease of use has made it possible to offer simulations to more diverse audiences than ever.  Potential participants are not constrained by technical expertise.

            The Internet has also improved how students prepare for negotiations. [22] Rather than relying upon books and secondary resource materials available in libraries, students now have access to a wide range of primary sources, including official government statements and newspapers from the country or countries that they are researching.  Besides allowing students to view issues from diverse perspectives, these documents are also likely to be more current than printed materials.  For students of negotiations, this makes for a much richer inquiry into the issues for negotiation and a deeper simulation experience. 

            Advances in technology present further opportunities for educational simulations. [23] One obvious application is to take advantage of increasing bandwidth and use Internet video conferencing to inexpensively emulate face-to-face interactions even over great distances.[24]  Moreover, tools such as “white boarding” packages could allow students to jointly edit treaty drafts and view and discuss proposed map changes.  Internet2 and its related technological advances will provide even more opportunities for exploring simulated environments.  The National Tele-Immersion Initiative, for example, will bring together individuals at distributed sites, and allow them to collaborate as if they were in the same room.[25]  Another intriguing possibility is the development of decision support systems to help teach students how to evaluate complex information in order to improve their negotiations under crisis conditions.  The Generalized Decision Support System (GENIE) Project developed by Jon Wilkenfeld and Sarit Kraus at the University of Maryland is one such endeavour (Wilkenfeld, et al., 1995.)  A final challenge for implementing new technology in simulated worlds will be in reflecting the growing use of information technologies in real world diplomacy, a trend that simulation programs such as ICONS actually anticipated.

Afterword: Simulating real world trends

As Rosecrance has written recently, “Today - as technology, knowledge and capital become more important than land, the function of the state is being further re-defined (1999: 5).” Consequently, representations of the international arena, a crucial component of simulations in international relations, must be updated to meet changing realities.  The end of the Cold War and the rise of a post-industrial economy have necessitated a re-thinking of all educational materials used in the teaching of international relations, including simulations.  Contemporary exercises should reflect two important international trends: the enhanced role of non-traditional actors and issues and the increased use of new electronic modes of communication and mobilization.

“New IR” encompasses ethnic dimensions of conflict in addition to the traditional state-to-state modes.[26]  In negotiation, this means increased attention for Track Two approaches, for example, which focus on the societal level of analysis and “citizen diplomats,” working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or working individually outside of the formal political arena.  Issues at stake in international negotiations have broadened tremendously as well.  The high politics of military-security have been augmented by economic and environmental security needs and by the competing identities that threaten political stability the world over.  The protests at the Seattle World Trade Organization meetings in 1999 demonstrate the growing importance of formerly “low politics” issues such as trade as well as the increasing visibility of NGOs and citizen groups in international discourse, as well as the role the Internet plays in organizing like-minded individuals across borders.

The combination of high speed communications and greater citizen mobilization is beginning to affect formal international negotiations as well, resulting in what the United States Institute of Peace has termed “virtual diplomacy” - “political, social and economic interactions that are mediated through electronic means rather than face-to-face communication” (Solomon: v, 1997).[27]  Kurbalija discusses the impact that new information technologies are having on the practice of diplomacy, and notes that properly utilized, they can allow diplomatic systems to shift from a “territory-oriented” approach to a “task-oriented” organization.  This would allow better integration of diplomatic missions into foreign policy decision-making, as well as permitting more productive use of subject-matter expertise, something which could be especially important for smaller countries (1999: 186-187).  Langhorne (1997:8) points to a concrete example of the new diplomatic age, “shared diplomatic missions” in Asia where a handful of South American countries have begun to augment their physical presence with a “virtual one.” 

Further, as new electronic communities grow and become actors in their own right in the negotiation arena, there is a new “digital media protocol” (Brown, 1997:X) that permeates traditional borders and manifests itself in faxes, teleconferencing, and Internet communications between parties with interests in various conflict situations.  PC-based video conferencing is one such channel that is being explored in the actual international system, as well as simulated representations.  The use of digital mapping devices is another area where real international negotiators have begun to experiment more with new technologies.  R. Johnson (1999) describes how shared, dynamic visual aides such as these maps can transform the conflict resolution process, something that can be replicated within a simulation environment.

As the international system becomes more complicated and technologically advanced, simulations can make valuable contributions to IR research.  As P. Johnson notes, computer simulation has already proven useful for exploring cooperation in anarchic environments and could be the right tool for investigating research problems in the fields of complex systems, where there are many interdependent actors, simultaneously making decisions and adjusting their positions (1999: 1525-1526).  Druckman (1994) notes the value of experimental simulations in research on techniques for conflict resolution, while Wilkenfeld (2000) observes that experimental explorations of foreign policy can help to “fill in gaps in our knowledge and ultimately allow us to generalize beyond our limited experiential environment.”

            The impact of new actors and new technologies is only beginning to be felt, much less assessed.  To remain current, simulations must take into account these emerging realities.  By providing a flexible, dynamic learning environment, they are capable of guiding students in an exploration of the new international system.  Proven long ago to be an effective mode of experiential learning, IR simulations can now provide even more realistic representations of the complex world.

Endnotes

[1] This article will focus on educational simulations.  For further insight into experimental simulations in the Social Sciences, see for example, Druckman (1994) and the special August 1999 issue of American Behavioral Scientist (42:10).

[2] Guetzkow regrets the “lack of development of a Big Social Science” and the increasing fragmentation of academic enterprises which has undermined the development of “cumulative research by simulation teams” (1995: 461).  P. Johnson notes that in political science, empirical methods and rational choice theory have almost “crowded out” simulation as a theory building tool, but observes that simulation modelling is gaining adherents because it allows researchers to investigate the behaviour of more complex models (1999: 1511).  Wilkenfeld (2000) discusses his experiences investigating crisis decision making using simulation and experimental methods, and speculates on the how these approaches can be used in foreign policy analysis.

[3] Kaufman (1998) argues for the value of using simulations as a tool for teaching international relations.  Wolfe and Crookall (1998) also support their use, but discuss the need for increased research on the educational merits of simulation and gaming so that the method may be used more effectively.  Vincent and Shephard (1998) give an in-depth discussion of the development and use of a simulation for international relations education.

[4] See, for example, Orlansky and Thorpe (1991).  In addition, Brewer and Shubik (1979) provide a comprehensive overview of military war-gaming, from its origins to recommendations for improving their utility.  Further, the U.S. Army War College and U.S. Air Force Air University maintain bibliographies of literature on war-gaming available at - HYPERLINK http://carlisle-www.army.mil/library/bibs/wargame.htm -- http://carlisle-www.army.mil/library/bibs/wargame.htm- and - HYPERLINK http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/wargame/wgtoc.htm --http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/wargame/wgtoc.htm.

[5] The Project on Negotiation of the Harvard University Law School (- HYPERLINK "http://www.pon.harvard.edu/" -- http://www.pon.harvard.edu-) and the non-profit Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (- HYPERLINK "http://www.imtd.org/" -- http://www.imtd.org-) in Washington, DC are two such endeavours.

[6] For more information about the development of the Model UN movement, see Muldoon (1995).

[7] Among the publications that have a committed record of publishing IR simulation-related articles are Simulation & Gaming, American Behavioural Scientist, Negotiation Journal, International Negotiation, International Studies Notes (now International Studies Perspectives), Academic Computing, and some on-line journals, including Educom Review, Journal of Interactive Media Education, and Educator’s Technology Exchange.  For a bibliography of publications related to active learning in international relations, see - HYPERLINK "http://csf.colorado.edu/isa/sections/alias/teachtip.htm" --http://csf.colorado.edu/isa/sections/alias/teachtip.htm.

[8] For more information, see - HYPERLINK http://www.mit.edu/people/anajam/cl-game.html --http://www.mit.edu/people/anajam/cl-game.html.

[9] See for example, Saunders and Lewicki (1995).

[10] This is true of both participants in negotiations and students who are simulating such involvement.  See Torney-Purta (1998).

[11] See, for example, Boyer (2000).

[12] P. Johnson (1999) provides a good overview of research simulations in political science, while Crookall (1995) gives general bibliography of the literature on simulation and gaming for educational/training purposes.

[13] Information on IF is available at - HYPERLINK "http://www.du.edu/~bhughes/ifs.html" -- http://www.du.edu/~bhughes/ifs.html.  See also Hughes (1999).

[14] Gredler warns against the use of “educational” computer programs that distort social exchanges, and notes that interacting with a computer, rather than human beings, is not an effective way of experiencing complex social processes (1992: 106).

[15] Some Internet-based simulations are self-contained and free of charge to the users, while other programs are monitored, include organized participation from various locations, and charge participant fees.  For Web-based exercises, see, for example, the ìDayton2î simulation at - HYPERLINK http://www.socsci.colorado.edu/ -- http://www.socsci.colorado.edu - and the tech-version of  “Diplomacy” at - HYPERLINK http://www.diplom.org -- http://www.diplom.org. Various groups also sponsor simulations of international organizations and meetings that are open to all interested individuals, such as on-line Model UNs, (for example, the UN On-Line at - HYPERLINK "http://www.unol.org" -- http://www.unol.org) and the simulations of G-8 meetings at - HYPERLINK "http://www.g8online.org" -- http://www.g8online.org.  Simulations that require registration by organized groups include those at - HYPERLINK http://www.Worldgame.net -- http://www.Worldgame.net, - HYPERLINK http://www.ideels.uni-bremen.de/ -- http://www.ideels.uni-bremen.de, and - HYPERLINK http://www.icons.umd.edu -- http://www.icons.umd.edu.  The Web has also had the obvious effect of making it easier to share traditional, non-computer based simulation through sites such as the Simulation & Gaming Exchange (- HYPERLINK "http://sg.comp.nus.edu.sg" -- http://sg.comp.nus.edu.sg-) and Harvard’s Program on Negotiation (- HYPERLINK "http://www.pon.harvard.edu" -- http://www.pon.harvard.edu-).

[16] The work of such simulation and gaming associations as NASAGA (North America), SAGSET (Britain), ISAGA (international) and JASAG (Japan) are also of interest if one wants to trace developments in simulation and gaming.  The new “Active Learning in International Affairs” (ALIAS) section of the International Studies Association is another excellent source of information on new approaches to teaching IR, including simulations (- HYPERLINK "http://csf.colorado.edu/isa/sections/alias/" -- http://csf.colorado.edu/isa/sections/alias/-).

[17] For more information on Teaching Theaters at the University of Maryland, see - HYPERLINK "http://www.inform.umd.edu/TT/" -- http://www.inform.umd.edu/TT/.

[18] A similar program, Project IDEALS (International Dimension in Education via Active Learning and Simulation), used simulations to promote international understanding and cross-cultural communication skills.  See Crookall and Landis (1992).  Information on a successor program, Project IDEELS (Intercultural Dynamics in European Education through on Line Simulation), may be found at - HYPERLINK http://www.ideels.uni-bremen.de/ -- http://www.ideels.uni-bremen.de.

[19] The ICONS model was extended beyond international simulations to regional negotiations focusing on Europe, Africa, and the Americas by a series of grants during the 1990s from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE).  The funding also allowed increased recruitment of participants from these regions.

[20] ICONSnet utilizes Oracle database and webserver products, and is written as a series of PL/SQL database packages.

[21] ICONSnet was developed to meet a number of technical and pedagogical goals that our experience led us to believe were important to successful learning from simulations, but specialized packages are certainly not necessary for running the sorts of simulation programs that ICONS undertakes.  Off‑the‑shelf commercial products make it possible for faculty members to provide channels for both synchronous (conferencing) and asynchronous (e‑mail) communications.   See Vincent and Shephard (1998) for discussion of such an exercise.  The downside to this approach, however, is that users must pay increased attention to the technical aspects, which could detract from their focus on the substantive issues.  For more information about how ICONSnet is structured to meet particular technical and pedagogical goals, see Blake and Morales (1999).

[22] More generally, Kuzma (1998) discusses the WWW as a resource for teaching international relations.

[23] See Uretsky (1995).

[24] Kuzma used ISDN videoconferencing for formal sessions of her Virtual Security Council, but notes that programs like CU-See-Me could allow for easier informal caucusing among geographically separated individuals (2000: 323).  ICONS has experimented with video conferencing, but is still searching for the proper way to balance new technological possibilities with the program’s pedagogical goals (Blake and Morales, 1999).  

[25] For information about Internet2, see - HYPERLINK http://www.internet2.edu -- http://www.internet2.edu, and on the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, see - HYPERLINK http://www.advanced.org/tele-immersion/ -- http://www.advanced.org/tele-immersion/.

[26] This is one of the themes explored in Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld (1999).

[27] Information on the USIP Virtual Diplomacy initiative is available at - HYPERLINK "http://www.usip.org/oc/virtual_dipl.html" -- http://www.usip.org/oc/virtual_dipl.html.

References

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