Far and away: police negotiators on overseas deployments

The growing presence of Western expats and travelers in fragile states and conflict zones has led to a rise in the deployment of police negotiators overseas to assist in the management of kidnap cases. However, despite the fact that the conflict setting and dynamics of overseas cases arguably differ from domestic deployments, police negotiators in many countries are not specifically selected nor trained to operate overseas. There is also a lack of research on the subject. Based on semi-structured interviews with police negotiators from a number of different countries, this article seeks to fill this gap. We report our findings in relation to three main themes: the type of incidents overseas negotiators are involved in and the consequences for the negotiation process, the negotiator role and (team) context, and the multitude of parties involved. We conclude with identifying ways through which operational deployment and negotiator training can be improved to account for overseas deployment issues