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Asymmetrical bargaining in the conference on security and cooperation in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

P. Terrence Hopmann
P. Terrence Hopmann
Affiliation:
P. Terrence Hopmann is Director of the Center of International Studies and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Interviews upon which the research reported in this paper was based were undertaken in part while the author was a research fellow under the Fulbright-Hays Act in Belgium during 1975–76. Additional interviews were undertaken in Geneva, Switzerland in 1974, with the cooperation of the European Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, especially of John Goormaghtigh and Jean Siotis. The author is also indebted to the Office of International Programs at the University of Minnesota for financial support for research and travel in Geneva in 1974. Finally, he would like to express his gratitude to Timothy King and Charles Walcott for their contributions to the development of the theory presented in this paper and to James Caporaso, Raymond Duvall, and Brian Job for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Extract

Bargaining relationships in formal international conferences and negotiations may involve structural asymmetries. A comprehensive analysis of these asymmetries in bargaining may be found in a synthesis of literature from formal game theory, structural-manipulative approaches to bargaining, social psychology, and the study of political influence. Propositions based on this literature focus on two factors which are likely to contribute to asymmetrical outcomes in negotiations: unequal costs to the negotiators from the failure to agree, and unequal resources available to employ in bargaining or influence attempts. An analysis of bargaining in the section of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) dealing with the issues of European security gave qualified support to these propositions. Influence over the final text in the CSCE agreement is related to a rough index of losses which would have resulted for individual nations from the failure to reach agreement in the CSCE. In addition, influence over the final text is related to each nation's resources, especially military resources. More significantly, the two superpowers exerted considerable asymmetrical influence over what was not included in the CSCE agreement, thus exercising a substantial veto. Thus, the asymmetrical outcomes within the CSCE negotiations were reflective of both differences in “threat potential,” that is, in the losses which actors would receive if no agreement had ensued, as well as differences in resources.

Type
Part II
Information
International Organization , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Winter 1978 , pp. 141 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1978

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References

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29 Schelling, p. 28.

30 Ibid., p. 36.

31 For a review of this laboratory research see Sawyer, Jack and Guetzkow, Harold, “Bargaining and Negotiation in International Relations,” in Kelman, Herbert, ed., International Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1965), pp. 508–11,Google Scholar and Daniel, Druckman, Human Factors in International Negotiation: Social Psychological Aspects of International Conflict (Beverly Hills, Cal.: Sage Professional Papers in International Studies, 1973), pp. 68–74.Google Scholar

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33 These data were obtained from the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1965–1974 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976)Google Scholar; all data are from 1974.

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35 The following documents were examined: CSCE Documents II/A/1 (19 September 1973) through II/A/36 (6 June 1975); II/A/101 (8 February 1974) through II/A/138 (1 April 1975); II/C/I (19 September 1973) through II/C/17 (12 March 1974); II/C/101 (13 March 1974) through II/C/121 (20 July 1975).

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39 CSCE Document II/A/18, 28 January 1974.

40 CSCE Document II/A/30/Rev. 1, 17 March 1975.

41 CSCE Document II/A/1 14, 25 February 1974.

42 CSCE Document II/B/1.

43 CSCE Document II/C/1, 19 September 1973.

44 CSCE Document II/C/12, 4 February 1974.

45 CSCE Document II/C/13, 19 February 1974.

46 CSCE Document 1I/C/12, 4 February 1974.

47 CSCE Document II/C/13, 19 February 1974.

48 CSCE Document II/C/2 21 September 1973.

49 CSCE Document II/C/3 24 September 1973.

50 CSCE Document II/C/4, 26 September 1973.

51 CSCE Document II/C/10, 7 December 1973.

52 CSCE Document II/C/11, 21 January 1974.

53 CSCE Document II/C/8, 28 September 1973.

54 CSCE Document II/C/9, 23 October 1973.

55 CSCE Document II/C/3, 24 September 1973.