Since I know myself to be rather introverted, especially when compared to other members of my delegation (USDOS), I knew that I wouldn’t be the most prominent speaker in the group. However, instead of just sitting there, I used this skill to my advantage in the simulation by joining in and listening to different conversations between other delegations, even those that shouldn’t have been heard by the U.S Dep. of State. After hearing different pieces of information I would bring them back to my delegation and we would plan out what speakers could say based on that info. I feel that I did accomplish a lot by gathering other people’s strategies sort of behind the scenes, because it helped the group as a whole respond to the issues at hand without being left in the dark or forced to answer a question that we would otherwise know little about.
One thing I enjoyed about the simulation was the multiple levels of collaboration. The simulation required everyone to work with individuals, their country, other countries, and the entire collective of delegations. It was similarly structured to the different levels of analysis that we’ve learned about this year, and it was fun & interesting to see a simplified and physical representation of those levels. One thing I struggled with in the simulation was speaking out outside of the group. While I found other ways to make myself useful, speaking up in times such as moderated caucus was something I found very difficult to do.
If I could change something about the simulation, I would add more countries to the summit. While involving more countries would possibly complicate things more, there would also be a bigger variety of solutions that could potentially be reached. Also, the involvement of other nations would make the simulation more accurate, since the hypothetical scenario would most likely affect more than four countries if it was a real world issue. Overall, I learned that coming to an agreeable solution between several countries proves to be more difficult than it sounds. Even in a simplified, hypothetical situation, it is very difficult to cooperate with countries and organizations with different and sometimes conflicting national interests. The became especially accurate particularly by the second day, since everyone had been familiarized with their delegations interests and beliefs and were therefore more hardset in everyone’s minds.