CULTURE, POWER AND INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS - UNDERSTANDING PALAU-US STATUS NEGOTIATIONS

Challenging regnant notions of the 'power' of 'power', this paper argu es for the importance of attending to the 'power of culture' in intern ational negotiations. Following a review of the theoretical grounding for this position, this is illustrated with a discussion of the talks between the United States and its Pacific dependency, the Republic of Palau. American blindness to culture, primarily its own, is assigned r esponsibility for having hindered the progress of those talks, at grea t cost to Palauan society.