More Thoughts on Negotiation and Appeasement
(right: enemy? ally? victim? victimizer?)
Everyone's been talking about negotiating with our enemies and appeasement lately. I've written several posts on it here and here, for instance. I've also read dozens of news and magazine articles on the topic in the past few weeks, here and here, for instance.
Today, I highly recommend Ken Cloke's new article on the issue -- Thoughts on Mediation, Barack Obama and Our Political Future.
Excerpt below. Full article well worth reading.
[C]onsider . . . one of the key questions for many voters – should the US negotiate with its enemies?
Most mediators, I think, would immediately answer, “Yes.” We understand that negotiation is based on differences; that negotiating doesn’t mean agreeing; that negotiating draws people away from violent alternatives; and that negotiation is preferable to power-based solutions such as war and terrorism.
Notice, however, how use of the word “enemy” automatically builds into the question an assumption of implacable hostility and an implication that negotiation must fail. To reverse this assumption and consider not just whether, but how we should negotiate with our opponents, we need to answer a number of questions, posed nicely in an email I recently received from Jim Melamed. These include:
How does effective diplomacy and negotiation differ from "appeasement?"
The principal difference between constructive diplomacy, collaborative negotiation and conflict resolution on the one hand, and appeasement on the other, is that the former seek to satisfy both parties legitimate interests, i.e., those that do not refuse or deny the legitimate interests of others. What made the Munich meeting between Chamberlin and Hitler history’s classic case of appeasement were, among other elements:
- The absence of Czechoslovakia and other allies from the bargaining table and inability to participate in deciding their fate
- The lack of representation of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and opposition parties, including socialists and communists, in a full negotiation of the chronic, systemic sources of conflict.
- Reaching an agreement in spite of clear advance indication that Hitler had no intention whatsoever of abiding by it
- The absence of an unbiased mediator and assignment of that task to Mussolini who was an ally of Hitler
- Cowardice in avoiding principled, albeit unpleasant consequences by failing to reach an agreement A failure to address the earlier injustice and inequity of the Versaille Treaty on Germany
To negotiate effectively, as classically described by Roger Fischer and Bill Ury in Getting to Yes, it is essential that each party understand and be fully prepared to exercise its Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA. Hitler clearly did. Chamberlin did not.
We can therefore define appeasement to include three distinct core elements:
1. Unilateral concessions, which by themselves, or in an environment that is conducive to collaboration, frequently lead to highly effective negotiations
2. Unfair and unjust outcomes that are imposed on those who are not present and have no right to participate in the process, which is easily remedied in mediation and collaborative forms of negotiation
3. Ethical and moral surrender in the face of blackmail, threats and coercion, which often flow from earlier unresolved conflicts and injustices.
How can America best negotiate our future?
We can best secure our future by recognizing that we are also world citizens, and part of a global environment that is facing serious threats to our survival that cannot be solved by any single nation. It simply does not matter whose end of the boat is sinking. We need to join the rest of the world’s nations, religions and cultures, and realize that it is no longer possible to go it alone.
Yet it will prove impossible to convince others to join us in solving transnational problems when we negotiate exclusively to maximize our own national self-interests, ignore the meta-sources of chronic conflict, and act in ways that encourage profound social, economic and political injustices to continue.
We can reclaim our unique claim to world leadership by practicing what we preach; by abjuring torture and tyrannical practices, no matter what fancy new words are used to describe them; by promoting conflict resolution, social justice and democracy everywhere, starting at home; by rejecting military solutions to political problems; and by adopting the principle that we will negotiate with anyone at any time to solve common problems.
For the remainder of this article, click here. For Ken's new book, Conflict Revolution: Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism, click here. My review of Ken's book here.
