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Reasons for negotiations failing 1. The other party does not deserve to win anything Parties to a conflict will only negotiate effectively if they realize that they have to continue to work together whatever happens: that they are tied together like two people sharing one life-belt. Divorcing couples may be tied together because they have young children together or run a business together or even have friends in common that they are not prepared to give up. Being tied together means that the actions of one will affect the other, and vice versa. Withdrawal is not possible if neither party is willing to give up the children, the business, or the mutual friends. Coercion is unlikely to be possible because neither partner will be willing to submit to it, even if they had done so previously.So the first step in many negotiations is to establish that there is a common tie, and that each party has a power to continue to hurt the other that can only be curbed by negotiation. Negotiations may fail if one party accepts this tie, but the other does not. For example, during the recent Gulf war, two fundamental positions could be discerned: that it was a war against terrorists, and that we all have to live together on the same globe. Proponents for the war against terror think that we can rid the world of terrorists without it having any bad effect for those waging the war. Moreover, they believe that a 'homeland protection' strategy can put an effective boundary round the terrorists. The other camp believe that we are all gradually moving towards living in a global village, and that what some people do in one part of the village effects everyone else in the village, too. The village may need policemen but they should be representative of everyone in the village, and not hired by people in one area to discipline residents of another area. Ties are often created by the joint investment or control over something of value to both parties. Another way of looking at the breakdown of negotiations in the Gulf is that neither side shared the value of the others. The supporters of enforcing UN sanctions did not value the autonomy of nation states, but did value the ability of powerful countries to protect themselves; the opponents did value autonomy and assumed that it was a fundamental obligation of every nation to preserve this. 2. Emotions that disrupt negotiation Negotiations work best if each party ensures that the investments of the others are respected, since this increases the chances of the negotiation succeeding. Rational negotiators may see this, but negotiators under the grip of strong emotions may not. Strong emotions may.be another factor that makes a negotiation fail. Hatred makes people want to deprive their enemies, anger to destroy what their enemies value. Fear makes people want to weaken others so that they cannot present a future threat. All of these emotions may undermine negotiations, not least because extreme emotions may result in self-abnegation to the extent that lose-lose solutions may become more attractive than win-win solutions. Managing such emotions is, of course, our particular contribution as psychotherapists. It may require individual work before negotiation is possible. A common theme to these emotions is 'otherness'. The hated person, for example, seems other, and it is disgusting to feel that we may have something in common with him or her. Shame is the emotion particularly associated with otherness: the shamed person feels 'other', and his or her shame may only be reduced if he or she can hide or withdraw from others. Etymologists think that the English word shame is derived from a Germanic word, 'scham' meaning wound. Cultures differ as to how wounds are perceived. Men typically make much more of wounds than women perhaps, it has been argued, because women have to live with pain and bleeding as part of their everyday experience, whereas men do not. Men in the UK and the US seem particularly incapacitated by shame, more so than women. Shame may be particularly important in some other cultures--Japanese culture, for example. A shamed person may feel wounded and therefore vulnerable to further shaming. Contact with others may seem to increase the likelihood of further shaming-- further wounding-- and people who have been shamed may react accordingly to being forced to participate in negotiation. They may resist initially and, if this fails, may fly into a defensive rage the other parties in the negotiation cease to be individual people and become instead threats. Shame may also block negotiations in a more direct way. Shaming one party to a conflict may result in that party being shunned, and refusing to have any further contact and therefore any further negotiation with the shamed party. 3. Justice If the other party in a conflict becomes "the other", then it may seem that they are not fully human and so not to be trusted, or not deserving of good treatment. The other party may fear that they will be seen this way, and may be very reluctant to make themselves vulnerable by any concessions. In the war games that used to be paid during the Cold War, escalation always seemed to be dominant strategy--as soon as the Soviet Union increased their armaments or strengthened their defences, the US had to do the same, and if they did it just a bit more effectively than the Soviet Union, then the USSR would have to increase its armaments again…and so on. The doctrine of overkill limited this strategy since it was recognized that, unless defences improved, both sides could destroy each other. But de-escalation, being the first side to reduce arms, continued to be impossible because it was assumed that it would immediately be exploited by the other side. Negotiation could only begin effectively when both sides realized that disarmament was a common goal. Negotiations fail if either side believes that any
concession they make will lay them open to sudden attack. They will therefore
fail if there are no adequate safeguards, if the negotiators do not have
the power to speak for the parties they represent, and if the environment
in which the negotiation is carried out places one or other party in jeopardy. Safety can be enhanced by the use of neutral venues and third parties to convene negotiations. Neutral countries may host international negotiations, and within countries, organizations exist to provide neutral venues for industrial negotiations. Third parties are so important that they have organized themselves into a profession of mediators, negotiators, conciliators, and so on. Negotiations may break down because these mediators do not do their work well, or because one or more of the parties to the conflict do not trust them. We shall consider what skills mediators need next week. 4. Scope Negotiations may lead in unexpected directions. Sometimes one or both parties come to the negotiating table having decided that one or more of these directions is completely unacceptable, or they have already concluded what the outcome of negotiation must be. Sometimes this is due to catastrophic thinking. The US believed that if North Vietnam remained communist other countries in the region would become communist too (the domino theory). Whatever the outcome of US/ Vietnam negotiations, it was essential so far as the US was concerned that it included a change of government in North Vietnam. This made negotiation impossible, and armed conflict inevitable. Revenge, too, may dictate outcomes. One party to a negotiation may want the other to be punished, or to suffer, or to pay exemplary damages that go beyond fair restitution as the sanctions did that were imposed on Germany after the first world war. Negotiations sooner or later fail in these circumstances since they are only a veil for coercion.
It is extremely difficult to conduct negotiations
if there is a substantial power difference between the parties, as any
intervention will become contaminated by this. Either one party will use
their power to push it through, or another party will suspect that this
is happening. 6. Deception and secrecy Parties in a negotiation may choose to meet in secret to enable them to discuss a wider range of options, including some that would upset the people that they are representing. Shared secrets like this do not create a barrier between the parties. When one party has relevant secrets that they keep from others, or when one party sets out to deceive others, than negotiations are very likely to fail. Negotiations, as we have already seen, need all parties to feel free to explore a full range of possible solutions. In fact, it is very often this ability to consider new solutions that helps people to break out of existing conflict. Deception, like the misuse of power, biases possible solutions. Some relationship therapists give a central place to honesty in their work for this reason. Deception may be malicious but is more likely to be driven by fear of the consequences of being honest. 7. Negativity Conflict generates negativity. Parties to the conflict will often have hoarded up negative judgements about each other. There will be resentments, wounds that still hurts, and moments when the other parties have seemed repugnant. This may be especially true in conflicts between friends and partners. Relationships are often begun on the basis of undivided positivity, and when negative thoughts develop it may be a shock. I have argued in the past that Konrad Lorenz was right, and that true life-long intimacy can only come about if partners are confronted with these negative judgements and find a way of accommodating them and remaining close. However, negativity does threaten relationship, and may break down in the negativity is greater than the existing positive valence. At the time of writing, the discussion list of the International Society for the Study of Emotion has been taken over by a discussion of whether or not the valence of emotions is biological or social. In other words, are certain emotions painful and others pleasurable because of a link with supposed pain or pleasure centres in the brain, or do cultures assign a valency to emotion. Anger for example is often considered a negative emotion, but in conflicts that are being resolved by coercion it may be welcome and may result in a pleasurable sense of relief. Emotion experts on the list cannot agree about the nature/ nurture issue, but it is clear that certain social emotions have an inalienable valency. in that they may be aimed at drawing other people closer, or pushing them away. However, the actual effect will depend on the perception of the other person, too. But it does seem generally true that expressions of non-proprietorial affection defuse, and expressions of anger, hostility or criticism exacerbate conflict with others. Defusing conflict seems to require mental work, and it is often 'easier' to respond to other's negativity of one's own. It ay be for this reason that hostility and criticism are linked to relapse of pre-existing schizophrenia, since this illness does seem to increase apathy and 'volition', and reduce the capacity for mental work. Mental 'work' or mental 'energy' are concepts that have become deeply unfashionable in psychology, but it is a commonplace that we have to 'work at' our relationships. What we may have to work at is accommodating to the inevitable negativity in any ongoing relationship, negativity that may increase with increasing depth in the relationship, and make something out of the negativity rather than shucking it off by being negative back. It is so much easier to attack the messenger rather than listen to the message, that negotiations commonly fail because negativity cannot be accepted and worked with, but is instead suppressed by coercion, or insulated by withdrawal. Dissimulation may be a strategy that partners initially use to conceal negativity in the hope that it will make it go away, but as we have just seen this can only increase the likelihood of conflict.
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This project
is funded by the Leonardo da Vinci programme, project number UK/01/B/F/PP/129_387,
2000-2003 |