Biography

Arvid Bell is a scholar and entrepreneur who specializes in negotiation strategy, crisis management, conflict system analysis, international security, and simulation design. He is a Lecturer on Government at Harvard University and the CEO of the Negotiation Task Force (NTF), a training, advisory, and research development group.

An expert in negotiation and crisis management simulation design, Bell has launched a new generation of immersive case exercises used internationally to train decision-makers in academia, government, and the private sector. Bell is also a member of the Executive Board of the Arms Control Negotiation Academy (ACONA), a Scotia Group member, and an affiliated expert with the Conflict Analytics Lab at Queen’s University, a research-based consortium concerned with the application of data science and machine learning to dispute resolution.

At Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Bell was appointed to the inaugural cohort of Scholar-Entrepreneurs, outstanding scholars and innovators who pursue pioneering research agendas, build new institutions, mentor students, and bring regional studies closer to practice. From 2019 to 2023, Bell served as the founding director of the Negotiation Task Force at the Davis Center. Today, the NTF operates as an independent organization, providing research, training, and advisory services in high-risk negotiations, geopolitics, and corporate dealmaking to clients in government, military, and industry.

Bell’s research interests include negotiation and decision-making in crisis situations; leadership in high-risk environments; space, force, and great power relations in Eurasia; U.S., EU, Russian, Chinese, and German foreign policy; NATO-Russia relations; Afghanistan and Central Asia; the Middle East and North Africa; conflict escalation and de-escalation; arms control and disarmament; regional connectivity in conflict systems; dynamic simulation design; and system effects in multi-constituency networks. He has published research in International Negotiation, Negotiation Journal, and International Studies Perspectives and was a Co-Investigator of the Middle East and North Africa Negotiation Report, a collaborative effort of scholars and students from Harvard University, Tufts University, Brandeis University, and IDC Herzliya.

As an expert on security issues, Bell has delivered guest lectures and testimonies at institutions ranging from the European Parliament to the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). As a teacher of negotiation, Bell has led workshops to a diverse array of audiences, including high school students, business leaders, and U.S. military officers, as well as students at Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Oxford. A trilingual communicator, Bell has worked with C-level executives, politically exposed persons, civil society leaders, and special forces operators in the U.S., Europe, and volatile environments, including Afghanistan, Russia, and the Middle East.

In his negotiation training work, Bell leverages his research on complex conflict systems to create immersive multi-stakeholder negotiation simulations. These case exercises push the boundaries of traditional teaching methods towards more dynamic and realistic training environments, preparing students and practitioners for the challenges of an increasingly complex and turbulent world. In collaboration with Brian Mandell, the Director of Harvard’s Kennedy School Negotiation Project, Bell pioneered the design of systemic multi-constituency exercises (SMCEs) -- highly complex, immersive simulations that can involve up to 80 separate character assignments and last several days. These dynamic scenarios simulate high-stakes, high-pressure situations, such as international security crises, in which training participants must develop strategies, build coalitions, remain resilient, and seek resolutions according to their characters’ unique set of interests. Bell’s SMCEs have been conducted as standalone events and featured as part of advanced negotiation training programs at Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Stanford University, including in the Red Horizon: Force and Diplomacy in Eurasia Executive Education program.

Previously, Bell was a Research Associate at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), a Research Fellow at the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School, a Visiting Scholar at Reichman University’s Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). He has received several awards and fellowships, including a McCloy Fellowship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, a Graduate Research Fellowship from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

Bell holds a Franco-German dual master’s degree in Political Science and International Affairs from the Free University of Berlin and Sciences Po Paris, a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a doctoral degree in Political Science from Goethe University Frankfurt.