Identifying Barriers to Agreement

Identifying Barriers to Agreement

1. Structural Barriers

   • The way the negotiation is structured, that is, who participates, what issues are, and what linkages exist with other negotiations.
   • It is often posible to overcome structural barriers by reshaping the structure.

2. Cultural barriers

   • Differences in communication styles, norms and worldviews, as well as ethnocentism.
     • Ethnocentric means to see their own group´s values as universal and superior to those of other groups.
   • Parties must be able to understand cultural filters and also interpret behaviours well enough to distinguish common from conflicting positions, to detect movement from positions and to respond in ways that maintain communication.
   • Analyzing culture
     • Artifacts
     • Communication styles
     • Social Norms
     • Assumptions
   • Probing underlying assumptions: for negotiators the most germane cultural assumption are those involving power and value.
   • Diagnosing cultual barriers: negotiators should seek to predict how cultural differences are likely to affect the negotiation
     • Power
     • Value
     • Substance
     • Process
   • To keep an eye on political factors in dealing wit culture, whatch for:
     • Stereotyping
     • Subcultures
     • Sophistication
     • Standards
     • Self- awareness
   • Overcoming cultural barriers: to learn about your counterparts´culture, one good way to do so is to live in the country for some time and especially to learn the language as well as history, geography and politics.

3. Strategic Barriers

   • Pernicious interactions among negotiators´rational strategies for advencing their interests.
   • Barriers of this type flourish when uncertainty prevails about the size of the zone of posible agreement, when the parties feel vulnerable and uncertain about each other´s intentions, and when communication between the sides is poor.
   • The negotiator´s dilemma: whenever their efforts to créate joint value are vulnerable to individual actions to claim value.
     • Asymmetries in information and mutual vulnerability drive out the potential for beneficial cooperation.
     • Negotiator´s dilema (Prisoner´s), arise frequently in conflicts. Even if all parties believe it to be in their best interest to negotiate a settlement, they may be unable to do so.
     • End-game effect: anticipating that their relationship will end, parties seek to claim value from others, and cooperation breaks down.
   • Insecure agreements: suspicions about the sustainability of agreements are even more difficult to manage when there are ambiguities or uncertainties about what the future holds.
   • Prisioner´s dilema are particularly likely to cause problems in the following situations.
     • Agreements cannot easily be enforced
     • Tha ability to verify compliance with agreements is low
     • Communication channels are weak
     • Reaction time is short
     • Many parties have to cooperate
     • There are no future interactions
   • Useful techniques for fostering cooperation in the absence of trust:
     • Verification regimes
     • Mutual deterrence
     • Incrementalism
     • Hostage taking
     • Outside guarantors

4. Institutional Barriers

   • Barriers to agreement
     • Internal politics: leaders thus have to work hard internally to build support for agreement while they are negotiating externally. Internal political dynamics of this kind often complicate international diplomatic negotiations.
     • Organizational weaknesses: lack of focused attention, competing priorities and internal disorgaization all impede agreement.
   • Principal-agent problems: differences in interests between principals and agents are another common type of institutional barrier. As a result, they may be able to ise their superior expertise and Access to information to advance their own interests.
   • Overcoming institutional Barriers:
     • strong leadership
     • coalition building skills
     • secret diplomacy
     • multi.phase negotiation processes

5. Psychological barriers

   • Biases in negotiators´perception and judgements
   • Common psychological Barriers:
     • Rigid mental models: people orient themselves by using preexisting interpretative frameworks or mental models, to decide where to direct their attention
       • But established mental models can also promote rigidity and block learning in new situations. As a result, people block out information that is inconsistent with accepted truths, a process known as selective perception.
     • Overconfidence: is a manifestation of a deeper desire on the part of negotiators to feel competent and secure.
       • Also known as "need -based illusions. Types:
         • Illusion of superiority
         • Illusion of optimism
         • Illusion of control
     • Loss aversión: more sensitive to potential losses than equivalent gains.
       • Can result in the problema of intermediate steps, where the path to settlement may require them to accept painful short-term losses in return for larger long-term gains.
     • Partisian perceptions: their perceptions of the situation and of the actions of the other side are subsequently shaped by partnership-
       • Common perceptual distortions that arise in such situations:
         • Goal Transformation
         • Naive Realism
         • Reactive Devaluation
     • Groupthink: when overt conflicto breaks out between groups, further psychological transformations occur within both sides. Internal cohesion increases.
       • Symptoms of groupthink: overestimation of the group, closed-mindness, pressure toward uniformity.
   • Overcoming psychological Barriers:
     • Mediation
     • Mechanisms that establish a common basis of "facts"