Level II Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its ”Behind the Table” Challenges

A long analytic tradition explores the challenge of productively synchronizing "internal" with "external" negotiations, especially focusing on how each side can best manage internal opposition to agreements negotiated "at the table." Implicit in much of this work is the view that each side’s leadership is best positioned to manage its own internal conflicts, often 1) by pressing for deal terms that will meet internal objections, and 2) by effectively "selling" the agreement to key constituencies. Far less familiar territory involves how each side can help the other side with the other's "behind-the-table" barriers to successful agreement. Following Robert Putnam's (1988) two-level games schema, I characterize such "behind the table," or "Level II," barriers more broadly, offer several innovative examples of how each side can help the other overcome them, and develop more general advice on doing so most effectively. As a fuller illustration of a Level II negotiator helping the other side with its formidable behind-the-table challenges, I pay special attention to the end-of-Cold-War negotiations over German reunification in which former U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, played a key role

Stepping Stone, Stopping Point, or Slippery Slope? Negotiating the Next Iran Deal

The November 2013 “interim” nuclear deal between Iran and the “P5+1”—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany—raises challenging questions. Will the initial deal function as a stepping stone toward a more comprehensive deal? Or will it drift into becoming a stopping point that leaves Iran dangerously close to nuclear weapons capability with the sanctions regime in decline? Or will it devolve to a slippery slope that would end up requiring a painful choice for key players between either acquiescing in a nuclear-capable Iran or attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities? With the Iran and the P5+1 each splintered into contending factions, a successful stepping stone strategy requires converting enough “persuadable skeptics” on each side to forge a “winning coalition” on behalf of the a more comprehensive nuclear deal. This supportive group must be strong enough to overcome the potent “blocking coalition” that will oppose virtually any larger, next-stage agreement. The best chance for the interim accord to become a stepping stone to a more valuable deal calls for a two-prong negotiating strategy with both value-enhancing and cost-imposing elements. The first prong of this strategy should strive to craft the most valuable possible next deal that credibly offers Iran a range of benefits, not limited to sanctions relief, that are greater and much more salient than those available from the interim agreement. The second prong should significantly worsen the consequences of failing to reach the next nuclear deal by a strong public U.S. Presidential commitment to sign a bill, prenegotiated with the Congress and P5+1 allies, imposing enhanced sanctions if negotiations toward an acceptable, but relatively narrow, agreement denying Iran an “exercisable nuclear option” do not succeed by the reasonable but firm deadline no later than twelve months from the start of the interim talks

Leveraging Tribal Sovereignty for Economic Opportunity: A Strategic Negotiations Perspective

Part II of this Article discusses the sovereign nature of tribal governments and reviews the history of tribal sovereignty, concluding with an examination of tribal-state compacting outside of the gaming context. Part III examines the origins of Indian gaming, focusing on the development of the legal framework which governs tribal gaming activities and necessitates the negotiation of tribal-state gaming compacts. Given the need for tribal-state negotiations, Part IV presents a framework for structuring and analyzing negotiations. Part V applies that framework in the retelling of the first part of the Foxwoods story, the negotiations regarding the original gaming compact. The story of Foxwoods, however, has a second chapter involving the subsequent negotiations over installing slot machines at the casino, and Part VI uses the same analytic framework. Part VII evaluates the change in the negotiation landscape in response to the Foxwoods negotiations and assesses the impact of technological changes on Indian gaming. Part VIII concludes by arguing that, although the relative tribal-state positions may have changed, much of the fundamental negotiation dynamic remains the same, and thus many of the lessons of Foxwoods are applicable today

Sequencing, Acoustic Separation, and 3-D Negotiation of Complex Barriers: Charlene Barshefsky and IP Rights in China

Taking the perspective of the lead U.S. negotiator, Charlene Barshefsky, this article details and analyzes the negotiations that took place in the mid-1990s between the United States and the People\u27s Republic of China over intellectual property rights (IPR). Employing a negotiation analytic methodology, Charlene Barshefsky\u27s actions are interpreted to suggest a number of promising approaches to managing the daunting complexities of trade and other negotiations: recognizing the multiparty aspects of apparently bilateral dealings and capturing them in a deal diagram; carefully assessing barriers to agreement; sequencing to build a winning coalition and overcome potentially blocking ones; acoustic separation of issueframes; and, most broadly, changing the game advantageously relative to a purely tactical orientation at the table through 3-D actions away from the table

Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible? An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations

Varied diplomatic approaches by multiple negotiators over several years have failed to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. Mutual hostility, misperception, and flawed diplomacy may be responsible. Yet, more fundamentally, no mutually acceptable deal may exist. To assess this possibility, a "negotiation analytic" framework conceptually disentangles two issues: 1) whether a feasible deal exists and 2) how to design the most promising process to achieve one. Focusing on whether a "zone of possible agreement" exists, a graphical negotiation analysis precisely relates input assumptions about the parties' interests, their no-deal options, and possible deals. Under a plausible, mainstream set of such assumptions, the Iranian regime's no-deal options, at least through summer 2012, appear superior to potential nuclear agreements. If so, purely tactical and process-oriented initiatives will fail. Opening space for a mutually acceptable nuclear deal—that avoids both military conflict and a nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable Iran—requires relentlessly and creatively worsening Iran's no-deal options while enhancing the value to Iranian regime of a "yes." Downplaying both coercive options and upside potential, as international negotiators have often done, works against this integrated strategy. If this approach opens a zone of possible agreement, sophisticated negotiation will be key to reaching a worthwhile agreement

Don\u27t Bet on It

If two people have different probability assessments about the realization of an uncertain event, they can design a contingent agreement such as a bet or gamble that offers each of them positive expected value. Yet, in the process of formulating this kind of agreement, information about the basis for each person’s probabilities may be indirectly revealed to the other. The very willingness to accept a proposed bet conveys information. This paper models a process by which private, asymmetrically-held information is progressively unveiled as a possible contingent agreement is discussed. If the two parties share priors and their information partitions are common knowledge, simple discussion of the acceptability of any proposed bet is shown to reveal enough about their private information to render the bet unacceptable

Tommy Koh and the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multi-Front "Negotiation Campaign"

Complex, multiparty negotiations are often analyzed as principals negotiating through agents, as two-level games (Putnam 1988), or in coalitional terms. The relatively new concept of a "multi-front negotiation campaign" (Sebenius 2010, Lax and Sebenius, 2012) offers an analytic approach that may enjoy descriptive and prescriptive advantages over more traditional approaches that focus on a specific negotiation as the unit of analysis. The efforts of Singapore Ambassador-At-Large Tommy Koh to negotiate the United States-Singapore Free Trade agreement serve as an extended case study of a complex, multiparty negotiation that illustrates and further elaborates the concept of a negotiation campaign

Henry A. Kissinger as Negotiator: Background and Key Accomplishments

Following a brief summary of Henry A. Kissinger’s career, this paper describes three of his most pivotal negotiations: the historic establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the easing of geopolitical tension with the Soviet Union, symbolized by the signing of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (“SALT I”), and the mediation of the agreement on Sinai disengagement between Egypt and Israel. An appendix lists other important negotiations in which Kissinger played key roles. In a subsequent paper (forthcoming), the authors will examine these and other major events in which Henry Kissinger played leading roles in order to extract their most important insights into the principles and practice of effective negotiation

Like a Boss: How Corporate Negotiators Would Handle Nuclear Talks With Iran

While the Obama team deserves high marks for launching the interim talks, its approach doesn't sell the upside of a comprehensive deal persuasively enough to transform more Iranian skeptics into active supporters—a necessary condition for success if there is an acceptable deal at the next stage. To sway skeptics, I recommend a specific "campaign" to dramatize the value of a deal. Beyond wooing skeptics, a strategy to build a "winning coalition" behind a deal must thwart determined Iranian blockers who will act to prevent meaningful concessions. After six months of talks, there could easily be positive atmospherics but little real progress (as with the round that just ended on March 19, 2014). To avoid escalation, diplomats will likely plead for more time. Granting a six-month extension, an option already built into the current process, could easily become a pattern, turning some version of the interim deal into a de facto stopping point. Meanwhile, as Ali Salehi, head of Iran's nuclear agency, recently asserted, "The iceberg of sanctions is melting while our centrifuges are still working." To mitigate the risk of such "deal drift," the United States and its allies should set a realistic, hard deadline for reaching an acceptable but fairly narrow agreement (one denying Iran what Graham Allison calls an "exercisable nuclear option"). Credibility will be difficult since Iran has often ignored U.S. and allied "red lines." To boost its credibility—and to help win over its own domestic and allied skeptics—the administration should pre-negotiate a harsh new "contingent" sanctions package with Congress and work to ensure buy-in from U.S. allies. The contingent sanctions should avoid the many deal-killing provisions of the recently defeated Menendez-Kirk bill. But instead of signing the sanctions bill immediately, Obama should publicly and forcefully commit to signing it if there is no acceptable agreement by the end of a single six-month extension of the interim deal. While many worry that such contingent sanctions would sour the atmosphere and damage the prospects for the talks, much experience suggests that skillful negotiators can effectively manage both incentives and penalties