Around-the-Table Negotiations

DTAP-C03: ‘Around-the-Table’ Negotiations §

Formula Stage §

• Are the ideas/guidelines/framework and the conditions on the final negotiation

  • How the process of continuing negotiation should go? What to aim for?
  • What would the general final deal look like?

  💡 Ex:

  • One Country Two System Formula
  • Land for Peace Formula
  • One-State Solution or Two-State Solution

• Characteristics of a good formula

  • Simplicity: straightforward guide for negotiators to follow
    • Can’t be manipulated or misinterpreted
    • Simple to broadcast the formula to the world
    • Lock other side into the deal as publicized
  • Comprehensiveness: it will promise solutions to all major points of dispute between the parties
    • One conflict can be composed to many aspects: competition of power + cultural/ethnic/religious/economic differences + historical hostilities
  • Balance & Flexibility: promise roughly equal gains to all parties

• Briefly explain the strategies to obtain a good formula.

  • Deductive Approach: going from general principles → Specifics is the logical way (${\Delta }^{\uparrow }$)
    • Problem: party might be scared off my sudden need for commitment and directness
      • Slow going: too big a scope
  • Inductive Approach: cautious to flank, move slowly, and as step-by-step diplomacy (${△}^{\downarrow }$)
    • Step-By-Step Approach: used for disputes with great complexity and pathological mistrust
    • Begin the negotiations with an agenda limited in scope and restricted to relatively uncontroversial items
    • Breaks mistrusts, build faith in diplomacy, familiarize negotiations with enemy
    • Problems with Inductive/Step-By-Step Approach:
      • Discussions of small issues could be mistaken for a lack of concern over bigger questions
      • Conditions which allowed the negotiation might change for the worse if too slow

The Detail Stage §

• Figure out the details of the formula
  • Conditions for each party: Land for Peace, How much land for how much peace?
  • Expected response for break of conditions
• The difficulties that exist during this stage is it is a big scope and it needs details
  • Detail stage is more complicated than the formula stage with large scope
    • It requires large teams of negotiators ⇒ makes lots of disagreements
      • Ingroup fighting between experts from different fields
    • Low ranking negotiators must report to authorities to make final decisions
      • Many delays for need of reporting home and asking for guidance
    • Due to complexity, it might be overlooked that a party is trying to shift the balance of advantage in the agreed formula
  • Must establish common language

    • Sometimes variables in the formula are not exactly stated or measured in words instead of numbers

      • Words are subjective
      • How much uranium-enriched capacity Iran can make until its a concern to international security?
      • When should states involved put or life sanctions against Iran in this agreement?

    • Some definitions serve one party over another

      💡 Ex: Ukraine-Russia Conflict: Russia’s Special Military Operation instead of Invasion

Negotiation Strategies, Their Strengths and Weaknesses §

1. Compromise on Individual Issues: to split the difference and settle in the middle of each party’s ideal conditions (meet in the middle)

   💡 Ex: Iran’s Nuclear Deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief from the global powers

   • World’s Ideal: denuclearization of Iran

   • Iran’s Ideal: maximize nuclear program and its benefits

   • Problems:

     • Some things are not divisible. Ex: Cambodia-Thailand Border Dispute: dividing the temple would make it not valuable
     • A party might make its demand higher to get a more advantageous “middle ground”

2. Giving on one issue and asking for satisfaction on another issue:

   • Good where each party thinks what it’s giving up is less in value than what it’s getting
   • Homans’s Theorem: one party give something it knows it will have to surrender anyways. While the other party does not have the same info

3. A combination of both

Should negotiators be accommodating or tough in their general approach? §

1. Extremes of flexibility and rigidity are both inconsistent with the logic of negotiation.
2. Give concessions in one go, so the other party doesn’t expect more crumbs of concessions later on
   • One big concession might be seen as more valuable than many small ones
   • Small concessions at a time might be overlooked, it might add up to much more than favorable
3. Major concessions shouldn’t be made in the beginning to have room for bargaining
4. If consecutive points must be conceded, impression of weakness can be reduced by
   • Making the concessions dependent on final package deal, stop talks once in a while to remind too much pressure may lead to deal breaking
   • Raise question of the formula again
5. a tough attitude in negotiations is most appropriate to parties confident that they can walk away without major loss

References §

1. C03-DTAP-Diplomacy theory and practice By Geoff Berridge