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Scientists Meet Diplomats: A Cognitive Insight on Interpersonal Negotiation

In this chapter, Mauro Galluccio and Aaron T. Beck explain how the area of research on cognitive biases has made clear that the kinds of judgements people are likely to make may well be affected by their own baggage in the form of various biases and perceptual predispositions. Politicians and scientists, like the rest of us, may be affected by various biases. Cognitive biases anchor our understanding. We need to investigate social-cognitive biases, because even if we have a lot of experience, if we are “trapped” in biases we will miss the insights sitting right in front of us. As in every policy, scientific evidence must be weighed alongside numerous interests and considerations in order to find balanced and appropriate policymaking for the people. Always remember you are all in the same boat and be careful not to be taken hostage by deeply held core beliefs, misperceptions, misunderstandings, and competitive behaviours.

essential component of the remedies being used against extremism in all its forms and transcends classical notions of power in international relations because it deals with foreign states as important (but non-singular) actors. Coercion between states is no longer the source of influence and domination, but rather the ability of any given state or society to attract, influence, and "convert" others to their dominant narratives (in this case liberal democracy, human rights, peaceful conflict resolution, open societies and markets, etc.). Public diplomacy is linked to these objectives given that it encompasses the strategic planning and execution dimension of policies that generate favourable foreign public opinion to a country's foreign policy objectives. It is, in other words, the "how" of soft power. As Edward R. Murrow, an American broadcast journalist, said in May 1963 on the nature of public diplomacy strategy during the Cold War (McPhail 2010:90): Truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.
With this in mind, science diplomacy is to be seen as a subsection of public diplomacy's nature and objectives given its potential as a source for soft power due to reputation and branding. In addition, scientific values such as rationality, transparency, and universalism are widely shared by many international actors, transcending ideology, religion, and cultural, national, or ethnic divisions (Royal Society/AAAS 2010). To this end, diplomacy for science and science for diplomacy are essential for soft power goals. The former aims at establishing cooperation and exchange agreements between scientists through diplomacy, while the latter establishes cooperation agreements that can benefit the host country (through scholarships, conferences, joint research ventures, etc.) (Galluccio and Vivani 2015). While spreading the ideals and values of liberal democracy and open societies is positive in itself, the combination of openness, credibility, and prestige along with policies that attract and train high-quality scientists makes science diplomacy an essential public diplomacy tool for consolidating soft power for an economy as well as advancing inclusive narratives in an international order plagued by the dangers of different forms of rigidity (Copeland 2011;Galluccio and Beck 2015). Foreign scientists not only benefit host countries through research and technical knowledge, but also provide opportunities for international dialogue, understanding, and socialization which, combined with the ideas received from experiencing life in open societies with liberal democracy, can lead to influence in civil society on their return to their countries of origin. This not only reduces tensions but also helps to open societies that were much more closed to the national and social narratives of the host state.

The Scientist and the Diplomat: Opposing Figures?
In brief, as defined in Galluccio and Vivani (2015), science in diplomacy demonstrates how science is used in order to contribute to different policies and diplomatic decisions. This scientific approach aims to facilitate the resolution of issues between countries. In diplomacy for science the aim is to bring together different countries to collaborate on specific scientific projects. In science for diplomacy, the aim is to apply a scientific approach to foster relationships between different countries. The goal here is to provide a more competent level of science in order to facilitate global development through adequate negotiation processes between different countries. This is also the meaning of the fourth dimension which is human beings' empowerment, that is, science and diplomacy for the people. Without this aim science diplomacy will only strengthen the links between and among states but not populations, thus failing to provide new tools for the empowerment of individuals. The aim here is to develop evidence-informed scientific knowledge without losing sight of ethical guidance and public engagement.
Science diplomacy features two main characters-the scientist and the diplomat-who "are not obvious bedfellows" (Royal Society/AAAS 2010:1) as they are inspired and driven by different backgrounds, ideals, perceptions (and misperception), beliefs, biases, and cognitive, emotional, and behavioural cues, mainly related to their personal thinking process and to specific areas covered by their fields of interest. On the one hand, science knows no boundaries: its studies transcend national borders and loyalties in order to unlock those natural secrets concerning all of humankind without distinctions. Even the language of science tends to be universally sharable and comprehensible in order to exploit, disseminate, and communicate results as successfully as possible through conferences, seminars, lectures, and social networks, and to allow the "peer-to-peer" result validation throughout a wide networking community. Moreover, "the scientist is driven by an idea of advanced knowledge in an impartial and disinterested way" (Ruffini 2017:29) because science is a public good that can be freely accessed by everyone. Scientific networks are based on internationally shared disciplines and values: merit review, critical thinking, diversity of thought, transparency, etc. (Hormats 2012). On the other hand, "diplomacy is an art resulting from the division of the global space into sovereign nations" (Ruffini 2015:28). Due to the plurality of national states, diplomats can perform their mission as an active agent of dialogue between different national communities. The diplomat's repository responds to concepts of influence, persuasion, balance of power, and strategic reasoning.
From these few lines, it can be easily understood that the scientist and the diplomat belong to very different worlds, embedding very different perspectives and perceptions, although they do not ignore each other when the momentum of action prevails. The former desires to access "the best people, research facilities or new sources of funding" (Royal Society and AAAS 2010:vi) through international cooperation, whereas the latter looks at science as a tool for strengthening networks and communication channels, which have the potential to support wider political goals. Scientists can also encourage their universities, research institutions, professional societies, and laboratories to adopt global engagement as a priority, a priority which is largely shared by diplomats and international organizations worldwide. Despite the differences between the scientist and the diplomat, it should also be taken into consideration the fact that the "way of doing science" is something strictly bound not only to national schools of thinking, but also to cultures, national regulations, and funding opportunities, which determine scientific results, their dissemination, influence, and application. It is clear that both domestically and internationally, using science in diplomacy as well as science for policymaking is essential when tackling global issues. In 2015 the OECD published a very interesting policy paper, a milestone, on science, technology, and industry titled Scientific Advice for Policy Making: The Role and Responsibility of Expert Bodies and Individual Scientists (OECD 2015). The paper outlines how the scientific community has increasingly been called to advise governments in highly technical issues such as climate change and health emergencies, especially if said issues have a crisis and/or long-term component. Scientific advice can be key for adequately framing and communicating policy issues to the public and other stakeholders, including potentially interested parties. It should be stated nevertheless that using scientific advice does not necessarily imply developing an "apolitical" or technocratic stance from the part of governments, but merely means providing greater depth in the realm of decision-making for the well-being of the populations. As in every policy, scientific evidence must be weighed alongside numerous interests and considerations in order to find balanced and appropriate policies for countries. Balancing science with other interests is especially important in an international environment where communication technologies allow quick access to information, making public opinion much more sensitive and reactive than in the past. In this sense, policymakers are held increasingly accountable to political debates in civil society. Scientific debates have also come under public scrutiny, especially when they encompass issues such as climate change and epidemics. Evidence of a "scientific" nature is used in these political debates to validate and reinforce one's views (although not always in an honest way in the case of climate change, the COVID-19, but not only). Unfortunately, when situations are complex, ambiguous, and uncertain, there is a tendency to find heuristic shortcuts to simplify the problem and to exert control through limited consultations and conflict avoidance among different parties. The COVID-19 crisis showed the powerful effect of context-related "negative" emotion elicitation such as surprise, fear, anxiety, powerlessness, loss, insecurity, and hopelessness, to name but a few. These cognitive and emotional processes increased the perception of uncertainty associated with the shadow side of the pandemic (unknown trajectory and knowledge). The communication in planetary crisis is a fundamental tool to show the ability of scientists, politicians, and diplomats to work together in forging links with people. Science and diplomacy for the people especially in the crisis situation should provide sustainable tools for the empowerment of individuals. This makes us understand the degree to which science and scientists are at the forefront of many of today's issues in international politics and demonstrates the implicit politicization of science. Moreover, it warns all of us that there is a need to strengthen cooperation between scientists and diplomats, so as to increase the coherence and efficiency of evidence-informed policymaking.

Scientists and Diplomats' Communication
Human communication is important because it is a process that involves a shared code, or codes, or verbal and nonverbal symbols. Misunderstanding is a huge problem in human communication, because the meanings of symbols are in the people that use them, not in the symbols themselves (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008). What one says, the other may misinterpret. Where the parties speak different languages the chance for misinterpretation is compounded (Fisher et al. 1991). Donald Meichenbaum (2011, 2015a, one of the most influential cognitive behavioural therapists of the twentieth century, has very concisely listed 13 of the most important motivational and "thinking errors" in decision-making. They are the following: 1. Use of thinking shortcuts: Mental heuristics and habits of thought. 2. Use of confirmatory bias: Seek information that is only consistent with prior views. Ask for opinions of only those who agree with you. 3. Engage in tunnel vision: Stubbornly hold beliefs and "select" data that one wants to hear. 4. Lack of curiosity: Failure to question the credibility of the source of information. 5. Inadequate consideration of how questions are framed: Frames always trump facts. 6. Engage in stereotypic thinking: Demonize others, use escalating images, lack of perspective taking, not rethinking the conflict. 7. Use of historical analogies and metaphors: Use "like a" statements that do not fit the current situation. 8. Inadequate consequential thinking: Lack of conducting a barrier analysis and accompanying contingency planning. 9. Think defensively: Blame others (attribution bias effect), denial. 10. Make "snap" or impulsive decisions: "Hidden agendas" influence decision-making. 11. Use groupthink processes: Strive for unanimity, group cohesiveness, solidarity, homogeneity of decision-making. 12. "Game the system": Strategically bypass and misrepresent other advisors' positions. Presence of hubris and unquestioned self-confidence. 13. Hold a "fixed entity" mindset and embrace "sacred values" that undermine the negotiation process.
Scientists together with diplomats should be able to pay attention to these cognitive biases and keep alive the cooperation in solving common global problems. The acronym SCIENCE clarifies this (Mahoney 1977; Galluccio and Vivani 2015): 1. Specify the problem as best as you can. The genuine and cooperative exchange of mutual experience and background about the problem is essential, as well as the analysis from different angles, pros and cons, integrating different knowledge fields where science and evidence-informed policymaking are at the service of the people. The advisors' selection is a fundamental action, making sure that appropriate experts are included to ensure the quality, legitimacy, and clarity of the advising process and to avoid conflicts of interest. Producing the advice: ensuring that selected advisors can conduct independent work, especially from a political perspective. 2. Collect and select information to gain fact meaning and a better perspective of the problem from different levels of interest at the intersection with the problem, such as people involved and the context. Questions should be carefully framed especially when the issues at stake are uncertain, ambiguous, and complex and they could be interpreted from different perspectives. The best available information should be used in order to produce sound, unbiased, clear, and legitimate advice, recognizing and communicating uncertainties, and avoiding nonevidence-informed "interferences". 3. Identify patterns: Use your experience to gain shared knowledge about a situation, trying to mutually understand the process instead of focusing on the result of your action. This is a step-by-step learning experience involving a growth of mindsets and consequently it is important to focus on the negotiating process. 4. Examine options: Brainstorming sessions with scientists of different branches and diplomats and politicians may help a lot. Select qualitative information in a way to understand the history of the problem. It is important to investigate cognitive biases, core beliefs, and cognitive distortions and suspend judgments and preconceived conclusions. 5. Narrow options and verify your hypothesis: This is an exercise familiar to scientists as such methods could be easily adapted to political decision-making. It has been proposed a cognitive-behavioural advisor to politicians in a way to improve their decision-making process (Meichenbaum 2015b). 6. Compare, revise, and replace your hypothesis. 7. Extend to other situations your problem-resolution process.
If you learn the process of how to get there, instead of just preconceived techniques to persuade and get an outcome, you will know how to collect the most relevant knowledge to advance the process. Techniques acquire a specific meaning and are solely related to the context, issues, and people at the "table". Cognitive, emotional, motivational, communication, and negotiating processes are at stake in this interpersonal negotiations and related adaptive decision-making. It is important to focus on knowledge and awareness capacity building among parties from different backgrounds and disciplines.

Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Interpersonal Negotiation
Cognitive processes are the modalities, with which every individual structures knowledge of itself and of the world and is inevitably infused with emotions and meanings. They can be categorized as sensation and perception; consciousness and attention; memory; learning; thought; and language (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008). All the cognitive processes, as psycho-biologically determined, are subject to distortions during the personal development of everyone. If we think for instance of distortions of memory: an individual can forget all the experiences inconsistent with his or her opinion on a determined matter and continue to remember and recall episodes that confirm individual judgment (or prejudice) (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008). In this way, it is as if the events that could disconfirm a determined opinion would not exist, while few observations engrained in memory could confirm an opinion. Research, studies, and clinical assessments have identified the influence of particular cognitive distortions and dysfunctional beliefs in human information processing on subjective appraisal of present and future events and related decision-making processes (Beck 1999(Beck , 2002Ellis 1992Ellis , 1994Galluccio and Beck 2015). Belief systems resist changes because cognitive distortions and dysfunctional beliefs "act" as mind guards.
Emotional processes are innate factors that characterize all human beings as they are at the basis of the motivation action tendency, especially for social actions. Emotions seem to carry out a determinant psychobiological role and they typically arise from the evaluation of events in relation to a person's individual concerns and expectations providing information about the self in interaction with the environment (Bowlby 1988; Galluccio and Safran 2015; Liotti 2001). Emotional competence appears fundamental for the understanding of meaningful interactions among human beings. Besides, emotional competence requires upstream metacognitive abilities that help people recognize and decode one's own (and others') emotions, to express them, and to modulate their expression (to avoid being overwhelmed by them). The crux of interpersonal negotiation resides in the principal role emotions play in the dynamic of human interaction, communication, and relationship building. Many researchers and scholars have proved that emotions play a role in behavioural activation in human beings as behaviour may manifest in verbal and non-verbal communication at the negotiation table (Adler et al. 1998;Aquilar and Galluccio 2008;Bazerman et al. 2000;Bosman et al. 2001;Ekman 2003;Fisher and Shapiro 2005;Forgas 1998;Galluccio 2015b;Galluccio and Beck 2015;Galluccio and Safran 2015;Isen 1987Isen , 1993Isen , 2004Labroo et al. 2000;Morris and Keltner 2000;Safran and Muran 2000;Thompson et al. 2001;Van Kleef et al. 2002, 2004. Depending upon the environment people find during an interpersonal negotiation, where vital interests (for himself or herself or for the community) could also be at stake, the level of emotion is often heightened because of perceived meaning of the whole process. A skilled negotiator should be emotionally competent. It is of utmost importance for him or her to identify, modulate, and express emotions.
Scientists and diplomats who have to negotiate evidence-informed policymaking processes, even before they take a seat and prior to becoming fully aware of the details of the negotiating issues, often have a particular predisposition from which they judge a subsequent determination of facts according to their field of expertise. The ability to co-mediate potential disputes or to prevent them is an essential interpersonal skill in this ever-changing and complex network of people, disciplines, and environment. The area of research on cognitive biases has made eminently clear that the kinds of judgements policymakers and scientists (among other categories) are likely to make may well be affected-often adversely-by their own mindset in the form of various biases and perceptual predispositions (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008). A central idea in cognitive psychotherapy is that our perception of an event or experience powerfully affects our physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to it (Galluccio and Beck 2015). People need to train metacognitive functions, which is the integrated ability to reason and attribute intentions, desires, and beliefs (mental states as a whole) to themselves and to others and the ability to master problematic mental states (Di Maggio et al. 2007;Galluccio and Safran 2015). The ability to meta-represent one's own mental states plays an important role in consciousness and may even be seen as defining it (Sperber 2000). If an individual is lacking this ability, he or she will be walking through an inexplicable and worrying world with consequential behavioural defence strategies. A narcissistic personality will not be able to detect his or her internal mental states and to adjust to ongoing relationships; a paranoid personality will systematically fail to read the other's mind, going so far as to attribute to others bad intentions towards himself or herself; a borderline personality will not be able to integrate an intense, changeable, and contradictory internal experience (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008;Di Maggio et al. 2007). For instance, the deficit of the metacognitive function called decentring will prevent people in interpersonal interactions from seeing the perspective through which others relate to the world preventing the dismissal of threatening mental states; the deficit of the metacognitive function called identification (the inability to discriminate between the intrapersonal and interpersonal context compromising the emotion regulation) will prevent people from accessing their internal and others' mental states influencing negatively adaptive decision-making processes; the deficit of the metacognitive function called integration, the ability to reflect and order mental states, will prevent people from building up an internal and/or interactive dialogue that gives coherence and a sense of continuity to our experience (Galluccio 2011;Galluccio and Safran 2015). Summarizing, the ability to identify our mental states and the other side's mental states, together with the awareness of this interpersonal process, is an important metacognitive skill very helpful in interpersonal negotiations. How to identify, express, and modulate emotions, which have been generated and acquire meaning because of the interpersonal process (that binds scientists and diplomats together), could facilitate a high flexibility of response. Emotional competence, a self-efficacy in emotion-eliciting encounters (Saarni 2011(Saarni , 2015, is a compass to improve the interpersonal negotiation process at large and it is a catalyst skill to build sustainable international alliances for science diplomacy.

Emotional Competence
Aristotle argued that "anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy". According to Saarni's words (1999:2), "Emotion-eliciting transactions are invariably social in nature. Our emotional response is anchored in social meaning, that is, the cultural messages we have absorbed about the meaning of social transactions, of relationships, and even our self-definitions". Emotional experience and social experience influence each other. The social context in which we grow up provides a meaningful foundation for the emotional experience which is developmentally embedded in social experience. The experience of emotion is never the same for two individuals. Our biological evolution has endowed us to be emotional, but it is the interpersonal dimension of consciousness which gives meaning to the emotional experience (Galluccio and Safran 2015;Liotti 2001;Safran and Muran 2000). The experience of emotion always takes place in an intersubjective context, such as a psychological field combining the experience of the interpersonal and interacting worlds of at least two people (Stolorow and Atwood 2002). Thus, our relationships influence our emotions and our emotions reciprocally influence our relationships (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008; Galluccio and Safran 2015; Liotti 2001). As stated by Saarni (1999:2-4), "The primary contributors to emotional competence include one's self or ego identity, one's moral sense or character, and one's developmental history", the latter being an especially significant factor. Moreover, "Emotional competence entails resilience and self-efficacy (and self-efficacy includes acting in accord with one's sense of moral character)". Resilience, the capacity to overcome adversity, facilitates interpersonal negotiation processes. Emotional experience is fundamentally moral (Saarni 1999). Our beliefs of right and wrong, good and bad, and appropriate and inappropriate determine our emotional response to the events. We perceive a conflict because it is related to our moral sense and we attempt to manage conflict in ways that optimize morality (Jones and Bodtker 2001). The relation between emotional norms and social order establishes a new conceptual bridge and an action sphere with the description of "emotional norms" which vary depending on the referring group and which could be considered the basis of some rigid thinking processes and fixed mindsets (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008;Thoits 2004). Saarni (1999Saarni ( , 2011 identifies eight key emotional skills for emotional competence to be nurtured while emphasizing the cultural and gender context of emotional experience and the meaning of moral disposition and personal integrity for mature emotional competence: Skill 1: Awareness of one's own emotions. Skill 2: The ability to discern and understand the emotions of others. Skill 3: The ability to use the vocabulary of emotion and expression. Skill 4: The capacity for empathic involvement. Skill 5: The ability to differentiate internal subjective emotional experience from external emotional expression. Skill 6: The capacity for adaptive coping with aversive emotions and distressing circumstances. Skill 7: Awareness of emotional communication within relationships. Skill 8: The capacity for emotional self-efficacy. Regarding the latter, the emphasis is on moral character. Without a sense of the right thing to do (relative to our subculture) we lose direction. Culture provides us with a way, namely values. They are an indispensable part of what gives meaning to emotional experience and they drive what become the goals of motivated behaviour. The common thread provided by culture allows us to find consensual meaning with others in emotional experience (Aquilar and Galluccio 2008). Emotional competence is the ability to master emotional processes and individual needs in order to deal with interpersonal issues and acts as a compass for people to find an orientation into the ideology and morality of the counterparts. We can understand how important it could be to provide interpersonal skills' capacity building training for scientists and diplomats to better cope with interpersonal processes. Awareness of emotional communication should be one of the core features of tailored training programs for scientists and diplomats because any particular negotiating exchange could prepare a script for the next emotional communication and far-reaching responses to it.

Conclusive Remarks
As concluding remarks, the following ten points can be listed to improve interpersonal negotiations:

Support from the Institution you Represent
Be sure to have adequate backing from your government or the institution you represent. Do not go forward without it, including the staff and resources necessary to have an impact. "Symbolic" representatives are of little consequence in producing the scientific advice. Instead, ensuring that selected advisors can conduct independent work, especially from a political perspective, will bring added value to the evidence-informed policymaking. Selected advisory systems are necessary to gather scientists and policymakers and they are also essential in developing short-and long-term risk assessment and crisis management strategies.

Build Trust on Both Sides
Have the ability to gain confidence of both (or more) sides, making sure that trust is built with the civil society and stakeholders. That is harder when you represent a discipline difficult to understand by the other side. But it is critically important to convey to each side that what you recommend is in fact good for the people even if they are suspicious. As correctly stated by Bert Bolin (first chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chance, IPCC), "scientists need to inform politicians in a simple manner that can be readily understood, but the message must always be scientifically exact". In addressing specific issues in a clear and simple manner, finding common grounds, there may be more opportunity to persuade rather than addressing some of the larger differences between parties. We also need to improve and manage training by helping scientists and diplomats to acquire better awareness and mindful attention to potential cognitive pitfalls (connections between cognitive and emotional processes, implicit beliefs, sacred values, mindsets, and chosen behaviours).

Go to the Nodal and Deep-Rooted Point
Understand the underlying issues, the link between science and policymaking, the reasons behind scientific and evidence-informed advice, and the uselessness of treating your counterpart as an obstacle to your ideas or actions. Do not get misled or caught up in what may be surface ones only. Do not be taken hostage by deeply held core beliefs, misperceptions, misunderstandings, and competitive behaviours. Always remember you are all in the same boat and you must manage your ego for the well-being of people.

Build Partnerships
Address and prevent potential barriers and obstacles to interpersonal negotiations in the form of worst-case scenario exercises. Engage in cooperative common goal-setting that nurtures hope and "unfreezes" core beliefs and cognitive distortions. Find a balance between joint endeavours and unilateral moves, depending on the situation and the nature of players' (or whoever's) influence. This includes determining which scientific advice should be foremost. Politicians and diplomats should figure out how to support that scientific advice while preserving independence of action. 5. Understand the Importance of Communicating Between Actors and Then Abroad Establish, maintain, and monitor the quality of communication processes first of all between scientists and diplomats and the way to address breakdowns in their interpersonal relationships (Galluccio 2011). Then, communicate the advice as a core strategic tool for engaging people in the process (fourth point of science and diplomacy for the people). Transparency of the communication process is an essential step, meaning that conclusions should be disseminated and communicated in a clear manner with appropriate timing and broad public outreach. In addition, policymakers must also be clear on when, how, and why they used advice offered by scientists. This is especially important in instances where the final decision contradicts scientific findings. Last, but not least, the use of the press should be carried out strategically and in cooperation. From time to time, one may feel compelled to express concern, outrage, or frustration. But overuse of these feelings loses effect. Be careful to keep balance without falling into the trap of "moral equivalency". 6. Take Risks Have a clear division of competences and know the limit between advisory and decision-making functions. Proper boundaries and competences will drastically improve the legal, logistical, and communicative dimensions of the main actors and among structures. That takes careful assessment, but sometimes you need to at least play with solutions more radical or more unconventional. This clear division of competences among actors allows for better management of risk strategies and repair of ruptures in interpersonal negotiations.

Get Ready for Everything
Be prepared to make hard choices, between short-term and long-term objectives, and between less than ideal compromise and more perfect solutions. Here comes to the fore the importance of having a clear division of competence: make sure that the relevant expertise and actors are properly used in the risk or crisis at stake. The process should be as transparent, multidisciplinary, and organized as possible. In the case of transparency, stakeholders and civil society at large have to be more strategically involved in framing and generating advices. 8. Composure Is a Virtue of the Strong Understand that there are rarely silver bullets, only steps towards containing the worst and making it possible for longer term solutions to emerge. Do not have illusions about a smooth and easy-going process. When we are in the realm of human beings, perfection is an illusion. Rather try to be patient and not judge according to your own background. Avoid mutual contempt. 9. Be Discreet with the Bureaucracy Avoid bureaucratic conflicts, like the plague, whether in your own government, institutions, or among scientists and diplomats. Refuse to play that game.

Remain Neutral
Do not let yourself be manipulated. Each side would like to make you take their side, be their friend, the one that truly "understands" the situation as they see it.
There may indeed be one side more deserving or morally deserving than the other (scientists? diplomats?), but in a conflict situation each side will be using methods, tactics, and indeed intellectual and professional "seduction" to advance its cause, and you must be alert to that. You can be sympathetic and close to people on both sides, but never lose your objectivity. Scientific advice should be designed for evidence-informed policymaking and to serve the people.