Social Planner’s Solution for the Caspian Sea Conflict

2014 | Group Decision and Negotiation | Citations: 0

Authors: Madani, Kaveh; Sheikhmohammady, Majid; Mokhtari, Soroush; Moradi, Mojtaba; Xanthopoulos, Petros

Abstract: This paper evaluates the proposed alternatives for sharing the Caspian Sea from ... Expand

Abstract: This paper evaluates the proposed alternatives for sharing the Caspian Sea from the social planner’s or systems-level perspective with respect to the stakeholders’ utilities from the oil and natural gas resources of the sea. Different multi-criteria decision-making methods, namely dominance, maximin, lexicography, simple additive weighting, and TOPSIS are applied to determine the social planner’s ranking of these alternatives. Results suggest the Condominium governance regime as the most promising division method. Bankruptcy rules and cooperative game theory methods can be considered as the other socially optimal resolutions to the conflict over sharing the Caspian Sea energy resources among its five littoral countries. Consideration of these methods in negotiations may help with resolving the existing deadlock, which has been in place for two decades. Collapse

Topics: resource allocation

Methods: trade-off analysis method multiple criteria decision making TOPSIS

Theories: cooperative game theory

Formal Analysis of Multilateral Negotiations Over the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea

2012 | Group Decision and Negotiation | Citations: 0

Authors: Sheikhmohammady, Majid; Hipel, Keith W.; Kilgour, D. Marc

Abstract: The Evolutionary Model for Multilateral Negotiations (EMMN) is utilized to ident ... Expand

Abstract: The Evolutionary Model for Multilateral Negotiations (EMMN) is utilized to identify the most likely outcome of the Caspian Sea negotiations. Since 1993, the five littoral states have been negotiating over the legal status of the Caspian Sea but have not reached any agreement, causing a Tragedy of the Commons to unfold. EMMN is a methodology that focuses on asymmetric multilateral negotiations, like those over the Caspian Sea, in which each negotiator seeks to reach the most preferable outcome for which he or she can gain enough support from other negotiators. An advantage of the EMMN approach is that it considers the power of the negotiators as a determining factor in the final resolution. The results of this analysis are compared with those of other studies on Caspian Sea conflict where the powers of decision makers are not taken into account. Collapse

Methods: multiple criteria decision making trade-off analysis method descriptive statistic

Modeling the Caspian Sea Negotiations

2010 | Group Decision and Negotiation | Citations: 0

Authors: Sheikhmohammady, Majid; Kilgour, D. Marc; Hipel, Keith W.

Abstract: The objective of this study is to identify techniques for predicting the outcome ... Expand

Abstract: The objective of this study is to identify techniques for predicting the outcome of a negotiation and then apply them to the current negotiations over the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which has been in dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The five coastal states—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan—entered negotiations in 1993, but have not yet agreed on who owns the waters or the oil and natural gas beneath them. We identify the five well-defined options for resolving the dispute and then discuss the states’ preferences regarding these options. We apply some well-known social choice rules to find the “socially optimal” resolution. Then we review several versions of Fallback Bargaining, which aims to minimize the maximum dissatisfaction of the bargainers, and apply them to the dispute. Finally, we represent the dispute in financial terms and apply several well-known bankruptcy procedures, which are fair division methods for settling monetary claims. We end with some suggestions on how the value of the Caspian seabed resources could be allocated among the five Caspian states. Collapse

Topics: resource allocation

Methods: case study sensitivity analysis

Theories: game theory