Books on the topic 'Failed negotiations'

This chapter first identifies democratization processes in which insurgents have successfully achieved their goals. It then compares those scenarios to one in which insurgents failed to better distinguish the conditions that might work as opportunities for them to succeed. These conditions are (1) being able to negotiate directly with the authorities, (2) having their interests included within democratizing pacts, and (3) counting with allies among elite actors negotiating peace and democratizing reforms. By applying these expectations to the case of the Zapatista movement, the chapter argues that when peace negotiations between insurgents and authorities occur separately from democratizing pacts among political elites, concessions to insurgent interests can be limited. Although insurgents might have allies in power and among those negotiating the new, more democratic order, if they are excluded from democratizing negotiations, their demands can easily be ignored.

This chapter examines the Indus Waters Treaty’s problematic reputation for symbolising India–Pakistan cooperation. Even though the treaty failed to resolve broader geoplitical tensions in South Asia, the principle of river basin-scale negotiations reappeared in American and World Bank proposals for resolving an India–Pakistan dispute over the Farakka Barrage on the River Ganges in West Bengal and East Pakistan during the later 1960s and 1970s. The spectacular failure of basin-scale negotiation in Bengal, due to Indian policy-makers’ determination not to “compromise” their river-development plans in the face of external pressure, contrasted with the relative success of negotiations over the Indus Basin. The strange afterlife of the Indus Waters Treaty, in which Indian politicians used it as a warning against further cooperation, further demonstrated its historical peculiarity. The treaty is not a model for improving bilateral relations.

Why do some attempts to conclude alliance treaties end in failure? From the inability of European powers to form an alliance that would stop Hitler in the 1930s, to the present inability of Ukraine to join NATO, states frequently attempt but fail to form alliance treaties. This book sheds new light on the purpose of alliance treaties by recognizing that such treaties come from negotiations, and that negotiations can end in failure. It identifies two conditions that result in non-agreement: major incompatibilities in the internal war plans of the participants, and attractive alternatives to a negotiated agreement for various parties to the negotiations. As a result, the book focuses on a group of states largely ignored by scholars: states that have attempted to form alliance treaties but failed. It suggests that to explain the outcomes of negotiations, specifically how they can end without agreement, we must pay particular attention to the wartime planning and coordinating functions of alliance treaties. Through exploration of the outcomes of negotiations from European alliance negotiations between 1815 and 1945, the book offers a typology of alliance treaty negotiations and establishes what conditions are most likely to stymie the attempt to formalize recognition of common national interests.

From the moment the European Union and Mercosur stopped their negotiations there was not progress or a real intention to re-start the negotiations again until 2010. Officially the EU and Mercosur “continued” negotiating the Association Agreement but it is fair to say that after such a failure at the last minute in October 2004, both sides becoming cautious in their hopes for a successful agreement. Considering that the negotiations failed publicly it is understandable to expect some years of “healing” before considering a new attempt. One more time, the right momentum was necessary to facilitate the re-launching of the negotiations. The economic environment was completely different from 2004. At this moment Europe is the one recovering from a financial crisis and from a weak Eurozone, while in Latin America this international crisis did not have that much of an effect. However in 2004 Brazil and Argentina were recovering from the economic crisis of the late 1990s early 2000s. The negotiations between the EU and other Latin American regional groups or individual countries were being successful. At the same time a third major investor and trader became an important piece of the puzzle, China. To some extent this could be seen as a better scenario for a successful agreement between both regions. The facilitator of the re-launching of the negotiations was one more time the Spanish presidency of 2010. Since then, several meetings have taken place between the EU and Mercosur, the last one in mid June in Brussels 2015.

Despite the importance of secret negotiations during the Northern Ireland conflict there is no full-length study of the use of back-channels in repeated efforts to end the ‘Troubles’. This book provides a textured account that extends our understanding of the distinctive dynamics of negotiations conducted in secret and the conditions conducive to the negotiated settlement of conflict. It disrupts and challenges some conventional notions about the conflict in Northern Ireland, offering a fresh analysis of the political dynamics and the intra-party struggles that sustained violent conflict and prevented settlement for so long. It draws on theories of negotiation and mediation to understand why efforts to end the conflict through back-channel negotiations repeatedly failed before finally succeeding in the 1990s. It challenges the view that the conflict persisted because of irreconcilable political ideologies and argues that the parties to conflict were much more open to compromise than the often-intransigent public rhetoric suggested. The analysis is founded on a rich store of historical evidence, including the private papers of key Irish republican leaders and British politicians, recently released papers from national archives in Dublin and London, and the papers of Brendan Duddy, the intermediary who acted as the primary contact between the IRA and the British government during key phases of engagement, including papers that have not yet been made publicly available. This documentary evidence, combined with original interviews with politicians, mediators, civil servants, and republicans, allows a vivid picture to emerge of the complex maneuvering at this intersection.

This chapter examines the attempts by the first Obama Administration to reach out to Iran in an effort to build trust. It traces the failure of Obama’s diplomatic efforts to secure any reciprocation from Iranian leaders. The lack of reciprocation shows the problem of accurate signal interpretation when there is no trust. It focuses on the negotiations in 2009–10 over limiting Iran’s supply of nuclear fuel in return for refuelling the Tehran Research Reactor. The chapter argues these negotiations failed because of the lack of trust. What makes this case so important is that there was no face-to-face interaction, which this book argues is critical to the development of interpersonal trust and accurate signal interpretation.

In August 1940, Master Tara Singh started negotiations with the Congress leaders about whether or not to support the government in its war efforts. Mahatma Gandhi’s response obliged him eventually to resign from the Congress Working Committee. Master Tara Singh supported the programme of the Khalsa Defence of India League formed early in 1941 under the leadership of Maharaja Yadvindra Singh of Patiala. In March 1942, Stafford Cripps brought a proposal that appeared to concede Pakistan. His mission failed but Master Tara Singh remained seriously perturbed over the possibility of the Sikhs being placed under perpetual Muslim domination. The Sikander–Baldev Singh Pact enabled Baldev Singh, a non-Akali legislator, to replace Dasaundha Singh as the Sikh minister in the Unionist ministry. Thus, Master Tara Singh’s idea was to strengthen the Sikh position without infringing his formal understanding with the Congress.

This chapter analyses the transitional period between the pre- and post-Lisbon periods. It starts by investigating the design of the Lisbon Treaty’s two control regimes, the delegated acts regime and the implementing acts regime. This takes us back to the years just after the turn of the millennium and the negotiations on the failed Constitutional Treaty when the two delegation regimes were first introduced. Once in place, the treaty provisions were not directly operational. The delegated acts regime was to be followed up by an inter-institutional agreement on its practical application, and the implementing acts regime required a new horizontal framework regulation on comitology procedures to become operational. These two issues represented the first institutional battles in the post-Lisbon period. This chapter investigates how the Council, the Parliament, and the Commission each manoeuvred to secure as efficient a position in the control regimes as possible.

This chapter examines the efforts of European socialists to grapple with disarmament, one of the most fraught international issues of the interwar period. From the outset, European socialists supported the quest for disarmament, and during the second half of the 1920s they not only pressured governments to pursue international negotiations but also strove to work out their own proposals. Ultimately, however, socialists failed to work out a practical programme for disarmament, a failure that underscores the near-impossibility of anyone doing so. After all, if such fervent proponents of disarmament as European socialists could not reach a consensus, then who could? The experience of socialists also highlights the complex ways in which the national and international realms interacted. For European socialists, disarmament was maddeningly complex not only because it was inseparable from other issues, most notably security; but also because it raised unresolved questions regarding the meaning of international socialism.

This chapter shows how Richard Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, were forced to change their strategy for nuclear arms control based on the collapse of the US congressional consensus behind nuclear superiority. Nixon entered office with strong convictions on the importance of nuclear superiority for supporting the United States’ national security commitments. Nixon also saw US technological advantages in ballistic missile defenses as one of the main bargaining chips to cap the growth of Soviet offensive forces at the upcoming Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. This strategy for détente was thrown into disarray, however, when Congress signaled its lack of support for a new ballistic missile defense system and the strategy of nuclear superiority. Nixon and Kissinger then changed tack, attempting to conclude a quick arms limitation agreement through backchannel negotiations with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. This initiative failed, weakening the American hand at the formal talks.

The failed constitutional reform and the successful electoral reform occurring in Italy between 2003 and 2006 constitute archetypical examples of the dynamics behind divisive institutional reforms conducted through a majoritarian process. The main argument of this chapter is that the very presence of four coalition partners with different priorities has led to the formulation and negotiation of an ever wider bundle of institutional reforms. First, this large bundle has been built in order to accommodate the diverging priorities and preferences of the government coalition by giving something to each party. Second, the very dynamic of trade-offs and the anticipation of the effects of the reforms have led the reformers to include more and more provisions in the deal, eventually evidencing the crucial importance of time management in the final outcome of the two reforms.

Greece developed a pension-heavy, clientelist, hybrid Mediterranean welfare state with many gaps in coverage. The global financial crisis of 2008 triggered a severe sovereign debt crisis, compelling the country to accept three bailout packages with stringent conditions as to spending cuts, privatization, and openness to international competition. Severe austerity has caused a protracted recession: the economy lost more than a quarter of its GDP between 2008 and 2015. The Mediterranean refugee crisis impacted severely on the country. New parties of the extreme left (SYRIZA) and extreme right (Golden Dawn) have gained support. SYRIZA was elected on an anti-austerity platform but failed to deliver and a fourth rescue package is under negotiation. The more likely future direction consists in an ever-tighter austerity programme with the immizeration of large sections of the population. A move towards neo-Keynesian intervention and social investment seems unlikely, given the level of debt and the bailout conditions.

This book explores the origins of presidential powers in new constitutions. Much is known about the effects of different presidential powers—less on the conditions that lead to their emergence. The book focuses on the origins of these powers. It argues that the most important predictor of whether a new constitution will expand (instead of restrict) presidential powers is power asymmetry, or more specifically, the difference in power assets between the Incumbent and the Opposition. These power assets can include electoral results, seats at key institutions such as the negotiating table, and even approval ratings. This argument draws from bargaining theories on self-dealing. Power asymmetry is a more powerful variable in explaining variations in presidential powers than others, such as the president’s ideology, class differences, or overall economic conditions. To make the case for this argument, the book reviews all the constituent assemblies from Latin America since the late 1980s, as well as several failed assemblies, and thereby provides one of the most comprehensive reviews of constitutional overhaul in Latin America thus far. The book also examines constitutional amendments that affect presidential powers, especially term limits. The conclusion is that to get more balanced constitutions (i.e., those that strengthen checks on presidential powers), neither side of the debate should have a huge power advantage over the other.

An Expanded PHI perspective needs to consider institutions seriously. The institutional context helps us to understand why so often public health information systems fail to deliver, and also how could they have done better. There are four sets of institutions that shape the development and use of health information systems: those that deliver healthcare; those that manage healthcare; those that make decisions on policy; and, those who finance health information systems, including external donors. The formal rules, informal conventions, and cultures in which each of these institutions function tend to constrain the introduction and use of health information systems. The introduction of health information systems thus becomes a process of negotiation where the owners of the various institutions need to find consent over what each will gain or lose. Morever, the design of information systems needs to factor in and address the design of institutions in which such systems are embedded.

Every year thousands of people are kidnapped for ransom. Their families, friends, or employers are forced into a fiendishly complex and harrowing transaction with violent criminals to retrieve them. How do you agree a ‘fair’ price for a loved one—who may be tortured or killed as you deliberate? How do you securely deliver a sack of cash to the criminals’ lair? What compels kidnappers to uphold their end of the bargain after payment? Well-off individuals, profitable firms, and international NGOs operate surprisingly safely in areas of high and extreme kidnap risks. Many of them have bought kidnap insurance. Kidnaps among the insured are very rare—and almost all insured hostages are safely retrieved. This book examines the intricate governance system created by special risk insurers at Lloyd’s of London to guide and shape their customers’ interactions with the criminal underworld, rebel groups, and traditional elites. By encouraging local leaders to protect rather than hassle the insured, most abductions can be prevented. If a kidnap occurs, there are robust protocols to structure the negotiation and maintain ransom discipline. Experienced specialists facilitate payments and safely retrieve hostages. Kidnap insurance underpins trade, aid, and investment in many informally governed, crime-ridden, and rebel-held areas of the world. In terrorist kidnaps, however, international law prohibits commercial resolutions and well-meaning politicians have stepped into the breach. The outcomes have been massive ransom inflation, political concessions, torture, and gruesome murders. This book explains why private governance works and why public governance is bound to fail in the market for hostages.

Whenever people talk to one another, there are at least two things going on at once. First, and most obviously, there is an exchange of speech. Second, and slightly less obviously, there is a negotiation about how that exchange is organized—about whose turn it is to talk at any given moment. Linguists call this second, organizational, level of communicative activity ‘turn-taking’, and since the late 1970s it has been central to the way in which spoken interaction is understood. In spite of its relevance to the study of drama, however, turn-taking has received little attention from critics and editors of Shakespeare. This book aims to put that right. It offers a fresh perspective on the dramatic text by reversing the priorities of traditional literary analysis. Rather than focusing on what characters say, it focuses on when they speak. Rather than focusing on how they talk, it focuses on how they gain access to the floor. Its central argument is that the turn-taking patterns of Shakespeare’s plays are a part of what Emrys Jones has called their ‘basic structural shaping’—as fundamental to dialogue as rhythm is to verse. It investigates what it means for a character to speak in or out of turn, to interrupt or overlap with a previous speaker, to pause before speaking, or to fail to speak at all. It explores how these moments are—and are not—signalled by the Shakespearean text, how best to describe and understand them, and the implications of such questions for contemporary debates about editing, rhetoric, prosody, and early modern performance practices.

How do states overcome problems of collective action in the face of human atrocities, terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction? How does international burden-sharing in this context look like? This book addresses these questions. It demonstrates that coalitions do not emerge naturally; rather, pivotal states deliberately build them. They develop operational plans and bargain suitable third parties into the coalition. Pulling apart the strategy behind multilateral military coalition-building, the book looks at the ramifications and side effects as well. Via these ties, pivotal states have access to private information on the deployment preferences of potential coalition participants. Moreover, they facilitate issue-linkages and side-payments and allow states to overcome problems of credible commitments. Finally, pivotal states can use common institutional contacts as cooperation brokers, and they can convert common institutional venues into fora for negotiating coalitions. The theory and evidence presented force us to revisit the conventional wisdom on how cooperation in multilateral military operations comes about. The book generates new insights with respect to who is most likely to join a given multilateral intervention, what factors influence the strength and capacity of individual coalitions, and what diplomacy and diplomatic ties are good for. Moreover, as the Trump administration promotes an “America First” policy and withdraws from international agreements and the United Kingdom completes Brexit, this book is an important reminder that international security cannot be delinked from more mundane forms of cooperation; multilateral military coalitions thrive or fail depending on the breadth and depth of existing social and diplomatic networks.

What explains war? The so-called bargaining approach has evolved quickly in the past two decades, opening up important new possibilities and raising fundamental challenges to previous conventional thinking about the origins of political violence. Bargaining is intended to explain the causes of conflict on many levels, from interpersonal to international. War is not the product of any of a number of variables creating opportunity or willingness, but instead is caused by whatever factors prevent competitors from negotiating the settlements that result from fighting. Conflict is thus a bargaining failure, a socially inferior outcome, but also a determined choice.Embraced by a growing number of scholars, the bargaining perspective rapidly created a new consensus in some circles. Bargaining theory is radical in relocating at least some of the causes of conflict away from material, cultural, political, or psychological factors and replacing them with states of knowledge about these same material or ideational factors. Approaching conflict as a bargaining failure—produced by uncertainty and incentives to misrepresent, credible commitment problems, or issue indivisibility—is the “state of the art” in the study of conflict.At the same time, bargaining theories remain largely untested in any systematic sense: theory has moved far ahead of empirics. The bargaining perspective has been favored largely because of compelling logic rather than empirical validity. Despite the bargaining analogy’s wide-ranging influence (or perhaps because of this influence), scholars have largely failed to subject the key causal mechanisms of bargaining theory to systematic empirical investigation. Further progress for bargaining theory, both among adherents and in the larger research community, depends on empirical tests of both core claims and new theoretical implications of the bargaining approach.The limited amount of systematic empirical research on bargaining theories of conflict is by no means entirely accident or the product of lethargy on the part of the scholarly community. Tests of theories that involve intangible factors like states of belief or perception are difficult to pursue. How does one measure uncertainty? What does learning look like in the midst of a war? When is indivisibility or commitment a problem, and when can it be resolved through other measures, such as ancillary bargains? The challenge before researchers, however, is to surmount these obstacles. To the degree that progress in science is empirical, bargaining theory needs testing.As should be clear, the dearth of empirical tests of bargaining approaches to the study of conflict leaves important questions unanswered. Is it true, for example, as bargaining theory suggests, that uncertainty leads to the possibility of war? If so, how much uncertainty is required and in what contexts? Which types of uncertainty are most pernicious (and which are perhaps relatively benign)? Under what circumstances are the effects of uncertainty greatest and where are they least critical? Empirical investigation of the bargaining model can provide essential guidance to theoretical work on conflict by identifying insights that can offer intellectual purchase and by highlighting areas of inquiry that are likely to be empirical dead ends. More broadly, the impact of bargaining theory on the study and practice of international relations rests to a substantial degree on the success of efforts to substantiate the perspective empirically.