He is also a member of the International Academic Advisory Council on Mediation of the UN Department of Political Affairs. He is the author and editor of such books as How Negotiations End(2019),A Pioneer in Conflict and Area Studies(2019), Preventing Deadly Conflict(2015), Arab Spring: Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifada(2015), The Global Power of Talk(2012). He is former president and founding Executive Secretary of the Middle East Studies Association, founding president of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, founding treasurer of the West Africa Research Association, and past president of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies. He received his doctorate from Yale and honorary doctorates from the Catholic University of Louvain and the University of Uppsala.