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Engaging in the Face of Non-negotiability: From Resolution to Transformation

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 Engaging in the Face of Non-Negotiability: From Resolution to Transformation

Ofer Zalzberg

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6377-3682

Abstract

Conflict resolution efforts fail in the face of non-negotiability. Needs-based Conflict Resolution approaches

perceptively posit the existence of non-negotiability and therefore point to the risk that certain kinds of

compromises can drive escalation and radicalization. However, these approaches trace the source of non-

negotiability solely to individual needs, omitting further sources and thus risking unintended escalation.

This article offers a heuristic typology of non-negotiability, tracing the origins of non-negotiability also to

four additional social domains: interactive dynamics, institutionalized settings, power and resource

divisions and worldview differences and collective beliefs. It consequently claims that such non-

negotiabilities can be "unlocked" if strategies corresponding to the different types of non-negotiability

are applied, and demonstrates this with illustrative examples. Finally, it is argued that conflict situations

in which non-negotiability is salient call for non-solutionist approaches: rather than engage in solutionism,

with a conflict resolution mindset, peacemakers ought to focus on unlocking non-negotiability, with a

conflict transformation mindset. While unlocking efforts take place, definitive resolution should be

avoided in favor of partial, transformative steps regarding negotiable issues that aim to narrow gaps

between conflict parties in mutually beneficial ways.

1. Taking Non-Negotiability Seriously

Mainstream Conflict Resolution approaches seek to broker agreed compromises between conflict

parties.1 Yet attempting to broker or impose compromise can prove perilous. Conflict studies show that

1
The most popular negotiation guide, Getting to Yes, calls negotiators and mediators to strike “principled
compromises”: ones shaped in light of the parties’ interests rather than merely reflecting the balance of power
between them. Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating An Agreement Without
Giving In (New York: Penguin Books, 1991). Hans Morgenthau, a German-American political scientist widely
considered the father of realism in international relations, provided a paradigmatic statement about diplomacy’s
 2

resolution efforts can fail, thus driving escalation and radicalization.2 Importantly, human needs theorists

have shown that human behavior is not infinitely malleable.3 Therefore, advancing compromise formulas

which require people to compromise over that which they cannot, their basic human needs, increases the

probability that they will mobilize against such political solutions, possibly violently.4 Needs theory

contrasts negotiable interests with non-negotiable human needs. Needs are deemed non-negotiable in

the sense that people would not forego the realization of their basic needs and that when people cannot

realize them for a sustained period of time, they may be willing to make the utmost sacrifice for them.5

This insight about the firm rigidities characterizing some kinds of human behavior has crucial policy-

relevant implications. Specifically, within states there are limits to the degree to which oppressive

components of law and order can be enforced on citizens by a government and internationally there are

limits to the extent to which state deterrence can deter. It would be wrong to expect human beings to

fully adjust their behavior to the demands of their powerful government or enemy, even when they are

weak or are offered great material reward. This is because, according to this logic, people are unable to

forego the realization of the basic human needs. Indeed, oftentimes resolution efforts proved premature

in the sense that they ignored non-negotiability, fostered collective action against the process, and thus

inadvertently led to escalation.6 This risk should not be taken lightly, not least because in many instances

role: strike an interest-based compromise under the looming shadow of use of power. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics
Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (McGraw-Hill, 1997), 584-591.
* I thank Carlo Aldrovandi for his insightful comments on this chapter.
2
Ramsbotham, Oliver. 2017. When Conflict Resolution Fails: An Alternative to Negotiation and Dialogue: Engaging
Radical Disagreement in Intractable Conflicts. Cambridge: Polity Press.
3
Burton, John Wear. 1979. Deviance, Terrorism and War. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
4
Ibid.
5
Burton, John Wear, “Needs Theory”, In Violence Explained: The Sources of Conflict, Violence and Crime and Their
Prevention. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997, pp. 32-40.
6
Dalsheim, Joyce. 2014. Producing Spoilers: Peacemaking and the Production of Enmity in a Secular Age. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Zalzberg, Ofer. 2019. “Beyond Liberal Peacemaking: Lessons from Israeli-Palestinian
Diplomatic Peacemaking.” Review of Middle East Studies 53(1). Stedman, Stephen John. 1997. “Spoiler Problems in
Peace Processes.” International Security 22(2): 5–53.
 3

failed peace efforts discredited entire approaches, rendering future conflict transformation and resolution

efforts much harder.

At its core, this insight about non-negotiability among human beings is the foundational premise of needs-

based conflict resolution: peacemakers ought to factor non-negotiability in the pursuit for conflict

settlement. They should not assume that human behavior can be properly understood by a market-like

materialistic cost-benefit calculus of interests.7 Building on this insight, this chapter offers a heuristic

typology8 of non-negotiability along with illustrative examples, sketches approaches to unlock them and

suggests a set of priorities for conflict transformation while unlocking.

John Burton traced the source of non-negotiability to human needs, which he conceived as psychological

and anthropological. These anthropological absolutes include food, shelter, identity, security and

recognition.9 According to this approach, the source of absolute rigidity lies primarily with the individual

self. Burton calls to organize society itself such that these non-negotiable needs could be fulfilled.10

Societal rules, norms, institutions and structures should ideally be designed with the aim of allowing the

realization of non-negotiable needs. This insight has broader validity. There are additional sources of

absolute positions and rigidity. Human beings can come to deem various things non-negotiable. Not only

because of individual needs, as human needs theory claims, but also, as explained below, due to other

social phenomena.

Non-negotiables should be foundational for conflict resolution. As long as significant conflict parties deem

disputed entities non-negotiable, in the sense that they would oppose efforts to negotiate compromise

7
Mitchell C. (1990) Necessitous Man and Conflict Resolution: More Basic Questions About Basic Human Needs
Theory. In: Burton J. (eds) Conflict: Human Needs Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 147-176.
8
Winch, Heuristic and Empirical Typologies: A Job for Factor Analysis, American Sociological Review, Vol. 12, No. 1,
1947, pp. 68-75.
9
Burton, John Wear. 1979. Deviance, Terrorism and War. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
10
Burton, John Wear. 1990. Conflict: Resolution and Provention. New York: St. Martin's Press.
 4

over them irrespective of the specifics of the compromise, negotiating an agreement regarding these

entities is effectively impossible. Put differently, taking non-negotiability seriously requires acknowledging

that bargaining and negotiations are impossible as long as significant stakeholders - those sufficiently

powerful to prevent an agreement from being negotiated or implemented - face absolute rigidities. In

such situations, leaders and mediators should avoid pursuing full resolution and should rather first

address non-negotiability, with the aim of unlocking absolute commitments that prevent transactional

diplomacy.11 To reiterate, the underlying rationale is that seeking resolution without such unlocking is an

approach fraught with many risks, highly likely to trigger and feed escalation.

2. Five Kinds of Non-Negotiability

There are different sources to non-negotiability among human beings.12 It is helpful to explore what kinds

of non-negotiability exist in light of an integrative theory which combines different social domains.13 One

such framework is Derek Layder’s theory of social domains, which offers a sophisticated meta-frame for

integrating different social theories (see also Wintersteiner, this volume; Graf and Kramer, this volume).14

11
As Waltzer, Andre and others explain, there are sound ethical reasons to protect certain entities and values from
the commodifying logic of the market. Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres Of Justice: A Defense Of Pluralism And
Equality. Basic Books. Andre, Judith. 1992. “Blocked Exchanges: A Taxonomy.” Ethics 103(1):29–47. It is up to the
conflict parties to decide whether and how to maintain such protections as they engage in conflict transformation
processes which advance their values and interests.
12
Some might be more appropriately be characterized as rigidities, in the sense of relatively high opposition to
tradeoffs, rather than non-negotiability, in the sense of absolute rejection of tradeoffs. This distinction is of
secondary importance for the purpose of this article and its call to focus on unlocking non-negotiability before
seeking resolution.
13
I am deeply indebted to Wilfried Graf for many enlightening conversations about integrative conflict theories,
which motivated me to extend notions of non-negotiability beyond individual needs to additional social domains.
Graf and Kramer offer in this volume a particularly rich integrative meta-theoretical framework for conflict
transformation.
14
Layder’s seminal text is Derek Layder, Modern Social Theory: Key Debates and New Directions, London: UCL
Press, 1997. I will refer to Layder’s broader work primarily through Sibeon’s insightful, critical evaluation of
Layder’s theory. Roger Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory, London: Sage Publications, 2004, pp. 106-114. Sibeon’s
assessment is that Layder’s approach is highly effective in addressing four common sins of social science, namely
reductionism, essentialism, reification and functional teleology. Roger Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory, London:
Sage Publications, 2004, pp. 1-11. This is consistent with deploying critical realism as a meta theory for conflict
transformation through complex realism. See Graf and Kramer in this volume. Lederach’s quadrant based
framework identifies four domains – personal, relational, cultural and structural – in ways that might be less
theoretically rigorous than Layder’s but have the benefit of elegance and simplicity. John Paul Lederach, Reina
 5

Layder conceptualizes four distinct social domains: the individual (“Psychobiography”), the dynamics of

small-sized “face to face” interactions between individuals (“Situated Activity”), the settings within which

situated activity occurs (“Social Settings”) and the social context, which includes both structural and

cultural elements (“Contextual Resources”). Layder’s classification reflects a cascade-like growth from

individual, micro-level dynamics, through meso-level phenomenon to macro-level ones (see Table 1). Each

of these domains is deemed to have relative autonomy, in the sense that neither has analytical primacy

or inevitably determines others, yet they are interdependent.

Context – Culture Context – Structure

Widespread cultural ‘Society-wide’ distribution and

Macro

understandings, discourses and ownership of resources, and

social practices consequential social divisions
based on categories like class
and ethnicity
Social Settings

The settings within which situated activity (e.g. home, the street,
schools, restaurants and shops, workplaces, etc)
Situated Activity

The dynamics of small-sized “face to face” interactions between

individuals
Self
Micro

Asocial components of an individual’s dispositions, behavior and

self-identity
Social Domains Map, Adapted from Layder 1993

For Layder, the individual realms, which he calls Psychobiography, refers to “largely unique asocial

components of an individual’s dispositions, behavior and self-identity… that are relatively independent of

face-to-face interaction and of the macro-social sphere”. Situated Activity refers “to face-to-face

interaction/intersubjectivity… [consisting] of situations of co-presence where two or more individuals are

Neufeldt, and Hal Culberston, Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring, and Learning Toolkit (John Kroc
Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2007).
 6

able to monitor and reflectively respond to unfolding action”.15 Social Settings refers to “the locations –

the home, the street, schools, restaurants and shops, workplaces, theatres and sporting stadia and so on

- within which situated activity occurs… Settings vary in terms of the extent to which they are formally

organized: some settings (for example, a court of law) exhibit highly formalized rules, practices, and

authority relations, whereas others (for example, family settings) are less formalized”. Finally, Contextual

Resources consists of two elements: First, ‘society-wide’ distribution and ownership of resources, and

consequential social divisions based on categories like class and ethnicity; and second, widespread cultural

understandings, discourses and social practices. For the sake of this heuristic typology, these two

elements are taken as distinct domains, providing a basis for a typology with five elements.16

Examining social rigidities through this framework of social domains - the individual, the interaction

between individuals, the settings determining the rules and nature of such interactions, the distribution

of power and resources and the collective frameworks of meaning in a society - can help in distinguishing

between different kinds of non-negotiability. As noted above, Burton, Kelman and other needs-based

theorists, have contributed much to the understanding of individual absolutes stemming from

physiological and psychological characteristics of human beings. They place the notion that individuals

cannot indefinitely accept certain things, for instance undignified lives, has been placed at the center of

the quest for conflict resolution. As research into needs advanced, the notion that these absolutes relate

also to the tangible realms of life (e.g. survival, material wellbeing, etc.), and not only the intangible ones

(e.g. dignity, recognition, identity, etc.), gained ground.17 So did the notion, contradicting Maslow’s claim

of a universal hierarchy among such needs, that such hierarchies are context specific -- shaped by

15
Roger Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory, London: Sage Publications, 2004, pp. 108.
16
Treating the cultural realm separately is needed also to address Layder’s underestimation of the importance of
culture. See Wintersteiner in this volume.
17
John Burton, “Needs Theory”, In Violence Explained: The Sources of Conflict, Violence and Crime and Their
Prevention. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997, pp. 32-40.
 7

historical events, culture and more.18 Scholars contest conceptualizing deep individual motivations

according to needs theory.19 Yet the undergirding notion that human behavior is not infinitely malleable

certainly has merit and is a major, necessary corrective to exclusively power-based approaches. People

are demonstrably willing to die and kill because their individual needs - for instance survival, material

wellbeing, identity and freedom – are frustrated.20 Ignoring this trait of human beings has been a major

omission of prominent scholars, giving rise to misconstrued theories and ruinous policies. Prominent

negotiation and coercion theories suggest to increase rewards and/or pressures and thus feed

intractability rather than advance resolution.21 For instance, Palestinians who have come to prioritize

freedom after decades under Israeli military rule won’t forgo it for economic benefit or because of military

threats. Israelis Jews, similarly prioritize persistence of Jewish identity against the backdrop of near

extermination experiences.

Secondly, absolute rigidities can stem also from routinized interactions between individuals. For instance,

say employee A and employee B have a regular weekly meeting at the last hour of a working day, just

before employee A has to leave in order to pick up young kids from a busy street corner or to replace a

18
Kelman H.C. (1990) Applying a Human Needs Perspective to the Practice of Conflict Resolution: The Israeli—
Palestinian Case. In: Burton J. (eds) Conflict: Human Needs Theory. The Conflict Series. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, pp. 283-284.
19
Lawler shows how in Johan Galtung’s work needs were conceptualized and used in a way reflecting a normative
idealist bias which was camouflaged as being putatively non-ideological and quasi empirical. Peter Lawler, A
Question of Values, pp. 135-162. Kriesberg challenges among other things the universality and uniqueness of
needs and offers functionally comparable moral frameworks for judging conflict situations. Louis Kriesberg (2013),
Moral judgments, Human Needs and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Ethical Standards. In: Avruch K. and
Mitchell C. (eds.) Conflict Resolution and Human Needs: Linking Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, pp. 77-
94. Questions arise also regarding needs theory’s assumption that needs are not zero-sum.
20
On the nation as a Community of Sacrifice, see John Hutchinson, Nationalism and War (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2017), 65-71. Contemporary gay activism in the Arab world, despite risk of imprisonment and
death, suggests that this prevalent phenomenon extends also to liberal and secular worldviews. Costica Bradatan,
Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of Philosophers (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).
21
"Ripeness Theory embodies a very common-sense principle: that a party does not take an action unless it feels it
has to". William Zartman, “Mediation: Ripeness and Its Challenges in the Middle East,” International Negotiation,
no. 20 (2015): 479–93. Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War
(Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1991).
 8

home nurse and care for his ailing, dependent mother. Employee A is likely to experience any tardiness

by employee B as a violent offense because it would lead to extending the meeting beyond its scheduled

time. In such cases, non-negotiability stems from regularly recurring interactions and commitments

undergirding them. In contrast with human needs, which pertain to “asocial components of an individual’s

dispositions, behavior and self-identity”, this kind of non-negotiability stems from regularly recurring face-

to-face interactions which involve critical dependence. Indeed, human beings oftentimes care so deeply

about relational attachments that they are willing to kill and die for them. Non-negotiable positions often

derive from the nature of the relationship not primarily its regular recurrence.22

A third kind of non-negotiability can emerge from the social settings of interactions. In particular, when

interactions are institutionalized in certain seemingly final ways they can create absolute commitments.

Institutionalization can create a perception that a matter is resolved or settled in ways that should not be

changed. One example of meso-level institutional rigidities is that of a political party which entirely

precludes certain negotiated agreements because of commitments it has taken as part of its membership

in a governmental coalition or in a multi-party organization. For instance, France’s Socialist Party (PS)

might deem certain trade-related options entirely impossible because they run against the common code

of the pan European Party of European Socialists of which it is a member. Any substantive debate with PS

leaders about the specifics of such options could prove futile. The 2013 Palestine-Jordan agreement about

Jerusalem’s al Aqsa Mosque, determining that Palestine would be sovereign over it and that Jordan would

act as its Muslim custodian, represents similar rigidity for future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the

holy site, which Jews see as the Temple Mount. Furthermore, at a meso level too, non-negotiable

positions can stem from critical, identity-defining relationships. For instance, when the Catholic Church

22
Family ties are particularly potent in terms of eliciting a willingness for self-sacrifice. When relationships
between genetic strangers are framed by drawing on family analogies, the willingness for self-sacrifice can
increase. Whitehouse, H., McQuinn, B., Buhrmester, M., & Swann, W. B. (2014). Brothers in arms: Libyan
revolutionaries bond like family. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(50), 17783-17785.
 9

chose to characterize Jews as its elder brother, it conceptualized the rapport as one defining the identities

of both sides, and its usage of a fraternal analogy implied an inability to disavow Jews.

The two remaining kinds of non-negotiability stem from macro-level phenomena The fourth kind stems

from societal divisions of resources and power which render certain actions seemingly impossible. At the

most mundane and tangible level, resource-based conflicts can manifest non-negotiability when they are

shaped by limited material resources: a person or group are unable to pay more than they have or can

borrow.23 A more complex example, stemming from oppressive power structures, could be a situation in

which an oppressed people deems it inconceivable to recognize the legitimacy of an attachment to the

contested territory by a power it deems colonial, believing that it would empower a colonizing process.

This may seem logical in cases of straight-forward cases of colonialism . 24 This may however present an

obstacle to conflict resolution in the face of plural attachments to the land.25 The oppressed side would

habitually rule out any possible compromise which extends legitimacy to the other side’s territorial

attachments under conditions of full domination even if the potential material gains from such recognition

were high.

The fifth kind emerges from the cultural realm, notably from worldview differences and collective beliefs.

Differences between worldviews and absolute collective beliefs in non-negotiability can introduce

absolute rigidity to conflict resolution efforts. Worldviews can differ from each other in dramatic ways:

having different values, varying hierarchies between them and beliefs that certain values are non-

negotiable; employing different terminologies; drawing on varied sources of authority; being oriented to

the future or to the past; and being anchored in unrelated, dissimilar systems of law. From a negotiations

23
For pedagogic reasons this example assumes a context allowing only one dimensional solutions.
24
Paulo Freire. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
25
Donald H. Akenson. (1992). God's Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster. Cornell
University Press.
 10

perspective worldview differences can stand at the core of absolute rigidities because oftentimes people

cannot support even a negotiated compromise which is advantageous from the perspective of material

interests if it does not cohere with their worldview. The Yesha Council – an umbrella organization of

municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank which is dominated by religious Zionists -

rejected the Trump administration’s plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite its

unprecedentedly favorable distributive formula from an Israeli point of view. Yesha Council leaders

explained the rejection by stating that the plan’s backing for a Palestinian state, albeit highly constricted,

contradicts Jewish religious laws. Palestinian Islamists rejected several proposals for the establishment of

Palestinian state alongside Israel, citing the religious inadmissibility of non-Muslim sovereignty on lands

surrounding the al-Aqsa Mosque and hence of Israel’s very existence. Worldview features are so

basic/foundational that significant divergence from them can imply an utter disregard of one's core

epistemological and ontological assumptions, challenging one's moral order (see also Seul, this volume).

“Protected values” and “sacred values” area a second source of non-negotiability stemming from the

cultural realm.26 This important line of research studies the cognitive mechanisms which lead people to

seemingly total moral commitments. There is a wealth of empiric evidence that peoples can come to

believe that a certain value justifies an absolute commitment.27 Research into protected values, defined

also as “those that resist tradeoffs with other values, particularly economic values”, suggests that such

beliefs stem “from deontological rules concerning action”. Deontology (or duty-based ethics) focuses on

the rightness of actions, in contrast to consequentialist ethics which focuses on the rightness of the

consequences of the actions. Indeed, people holding these values tend to say that the rules they enshrine

26
Baron, Jonathan and Mark Spranca. 1997. “Protected Values”. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 70(1), 1–16. Tetlock, Philip E. 2003. “Thinking the Unthinkable: Sacred Values and Taboo Cognitions.”
Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(7):320–24. Scott, Atran, Axelrod Robert, and Davis Richard. 2007. “Sacred Barriers
to Conflict Resolution.” Science 317:1039–40.
27
On the nation as a Community of Sacrifice see Hutchinson, John. 2017. Nationalism and War. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 65-71.
 11

must be followed, irrespective of the benefits of violating them.28 For instance, those holding an absolute

belief that one should not eat human flesh or engage in incest would maintain it even in the face of

material incentives. Baron and Spranca have found that protected values tend to have the following

properties: they are insensitive to quantity (eating a small amount of human flesh is as bad as a large

amount), they emphasize participation in an act rather than consequences, all people should abide by the

moral prohibition (even if they do not think they should). Protected values therefore defy rational-choice

theory in the sense that they are not subject to cost-benefit calculations. Therefore, when conflict parties

hold such beliefs regarding disputed entities, negotiating compromises over them is impossible.29 Indeed,

the very suggestion of such compromises can “backfire”, triggering moral outrage, entrenching

commitment to the disputed entity and augmenting the willingness to employ violence.30

For our purposes of studying sources of non-negotiability in the cultural realm it is essential to map what

are the protected values within each major worldview in the conflict. Indeed, research about protected

values helps mapping and conceptualizing collective beliefs in non-negotiability. When societies in conflict

are heterogeneous – made up of groups which fundamentally differ from each other – non-negotiability

28
Scholars distinguish between declared protected values and evidenced protected values: those posturing as
having an absolute commitment as a negotiation tactic belong to the former group and suicide bombers to the
latter. Philip E. Tetlock, Barbara A. Mellers, and J. Peter Scoblic, “Sacred versus Pseudo-Sacred Values: How People
Cope with Taboo Trade-Offs,” American Economic Review 107, no. 5 (2017): 96–99.
29
As Tetlock shows, in some cases conflict parties claim to hold such absolute beliefs, yet in effect they are at
times willing to negotiate over them. Tetlock, Philip E., Barbara A. Mellers, and J. Peter Scoblic. 2017. “Sacred
versus Pseudo-Sacred Values: How People Cope with Taboo Trade-Offs.” American Economic Review 107(5):96–
99. However, in some cases the absolute commitment is real and evidenced. Suicide bombers are a prime example
of the latter. Scott Atran. Genesis of Suicide terrorism. Science, American Association for the Advancement of
Science, 2003, 299, pp.1534-1539.
30
Baron, Jonathan and Mark Spranca. 1997. “Protected Values”. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 70(1), 1–16. Ginges and Atran found evidence in many surveys in different conflict areas for the
following finding, which they term the “backfire effect”: “people with sacred values responded with greater
hostility to compromises over those sacred values when such compromises included material sweeteners to the
deal. In contrast, they responded with decreased hostility when the other side made symbolic gestures”. Ginges,
Jeremy and Scott Atran. 2013. “Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict.” Pp. 273–301 in Advances in Culture and
Psychology, edited by M. J. Gelfand, C. Chiu, and Y. Hong. Oxford University Press.
 12

may not pertain to that society as a whole, but to particular groups and their disparate worldviews,

notably beliefs about the non-negotiability of certain values.

Non-negotiability may thus emerge from at least five different domains: the asocial self, regularly

recurrent relationships, institutional arrangements, structural power relations, worldview differences or

collective beliefs. In summary, people may deem things non-negotiable and be willing to die for five

principal kinds of reasons: their basic individual needs cannot realized; they routinized or institutionalized

commitments to others which contradict certain negotiated outcomes; they face resource or power based

limitations; they face seemingly unbridgeable worldview differences or deep beliefs about non-

negotiability. A conflict could include several phenomena of non-negotiability, possibly of different types,

which could intersect with each other. For instance, the conflict over the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif

consists of clashing institutional commitments (treaties between Israel and Jordan and between Palestine

and Jordan), power-based limitations (Palestinians deny Jewish attachments to the site fearing that

recognition would empower Israeli rule and encroachment by Temple movements) and overlapping

protected values (many Palestinians and Zionists deem the paramount site non-negotiable and evince

absolute commitment to their rule over it). The common characteristic of all five kinds is that in and of

themselves the absolute rigidities associated with them can prevent negotiating the comprehensive

resolution of a conflict. At the same time, these kinds of non-negotiability have different nature. For

example, a physical human need for food and sleep is objective and hence a constant non-negotiable

feature of human life. In contrast, other kinds of non-negotiability are best thought of as an impermanent

state of affairs, rather than as an inalterable, fixed reality.

 13

Recent research regarding negotiations charts operational ways for negotiators to map value-based non-

negotiabilities, emphasizing the need for dialogue and interaction in intra-group dialogues.31 Interaction

within and across groups would undoubtedly be helpful also for to mapping other types of non-

negotiabilities.

Whether non-negotiability is objective or socially constructed, there could often be ways to overcome it.

While a detailed explanation of such ways falls beyond the scope of this paper, an illustrative sketch of

what such approaches for unlocking different kinds of non-negotiability follows for demonstrative

purposes.

3. Unlocking Non-Negotiability: Five Schematic Approaches

When only one conflict party deems something non-negotiable, compromise-based approaches may

suffice. The negotiators themselves, perhaps with the help of a mediator, can conceivably find a

compromise formula in which each side compromises only over what it can. But when two or more parties

hold non-negotiable positions regarding the same disputed entities there is a need to overcome or unlock

non-negotiability. Otherwise, resolution attempts would inevitably fail and in the process could stoke

escalation.

Given the prevalent secularist and materialistic biases in Western scholarship, it is important to address

the fact that the very notion of non-negotiable positions evokes for some an image of fundamentalism or

of adamant ideologues, often from religious communities, who would by default resist compromise.

However, there is rich evidence for significant shifts among ideologues: the Catholic Church, an emblem

31
Nichole Argo and Jeremy Ginges, “Beyond Impasse: Addressing Sacred Values in International Political
Negotiations,” in Handbook of International Negotiation: Interpersonal, Intercultural, and Diplomatic Perspectives
(Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2015). Daniel Shapiro, Negotiating the Nonnegotiable: How
to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts (New York: Penguin, 2017).
 14

of conservatism, revised anti-Jewish doctrinal positions in the Vatican 2 Council, and illegal paramilitary

IRA intently decided to shift entirely from military to political strategy.32

More generally, unlocking can be thought of as removing resistance for transactional diplomacy -- rather

than as prodding toward resolution by brokering a specific compromise. Attempting resolution without it

will likely backfire, triggering an escalation. In this sense it is an enabling move. Some scholars of conflict

resolution and transformation call to escalate in order to make latent issues explicit and to increase the

costs of conflict so the parties would seek resolution.33 While higher costs can incentivize conflict parties

to pursue compromise this is the case only when attachments are strong but not absolute and non-

negotiable. In the face of non-negotiability, resolution efforts risk backfiring in ways that would only

deepen intractability. Increasing the costs of a present reality when all paths to change seem locked will

likely lead to a hunkering down within a zero-sum mindset rather than to a policy shift toward mutually

beneficial paths. The importance of this major concern is evident also from the comprehensive support in

conflict studies for the Do No Harm principle.34 Conflict parties and third parties which prod a conflict

toward comprehensive resolution without mapping non-negotiabilities in order to verify that there are

none or that existing ones are adequately addressed should be faulted for criminal neglect.

32
Connelly, John. From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933-1965, Harvard
University Press, 2012. Molony, Ed. A Secret History of the IRA, W. W. Norton & Company, 2003. It is also worth
noting that secular liberal stakeholders often evince great resistance to change of beliefs and a high willingness for
self-sacrifice. John Gray. Seven Types of Atheism. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
33
Lederach draws on Adam Curle’s work, recommending to increase awareness in the face of latent conflicts so as
to make the overt, and to shift from unbalanced power to balanced power distribution in order to reach what
Curle defines as peace. Lederach, John Paul. "Process: The Dynamics and Progression of Conflict," chap. in Building
Peace, Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1997, pp. 63-72. The notion that parties with unequal
power cannot resolve conflicts or be at peace is empirically false (consider for instance Belgium and Germany since
World War II or Malaysia and Singapore in recent decades) and the attempt to increase the costs incurred by the
stronger party is pregnant with high risks of backlash. Zartman, William I., Ripe for Resolution, New York: Oxford,
1985/1989.
34
Anderson, Mary. Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace - Or War, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010.
 15

Whereas conflict transformation and peacebuilding have been compared to the creative work of an artist

or a carpenter35, unlocking is more reminiscent of the work of a plumber who opens congestions so that

regular flow would be the norm. Unlocking is about enabling transactional diplomacy, not incentivizing it.

When non-negotiabilities are unlocked, conflict dynamics become subject to shifting preferences (value-

based motivations) and evolving interests, such that the parties acquire greater adaptive flexibility in

terms of responding to such changes. A focus on unlocking necessitates a shift away from a conflict

resolution mindset toward a conflict transformation mindset, in the sense that comprehensive resolution

is either suspended or postponed.36 Conflict parties focusing on unlocking may deem it either less

ambitiously in the context of narrowing gaps between them or more ambitiously as setting the scene for

future resolution.

With this broad definition in mind, one can review the following possible directions for unlocking different

kinds of non-negotiability.

A. Individual Physical-psychological: Foster inventive thinking about a diversity of ways in which

individuals can satisfy their physiological and psychological needs through a reframing of their goals and

the reorganizing of social life in a manner allowing the satisfaction of human needs.37

35
Lederach, John Paul. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. Oxford, MA: Oxford University
Press. 2005.
36
“With resolution as a guiding metaphor, the focus is on finding a nonviolent solution to a problem—the
presenting issue. The goal is to find answers to problems and to end something that is causing pain or difficulty... a
conflict resolution framework does not always lead to clarity about what should be built in its place. Conflict
transformation, on the other hand, focuses on change, addressing two questions: ‘What do we need to stop?’ and
‘What do we hope to build?’. Since change always involves a movement from one thing to another, peacebuilders
must look not only at the starting point, but also at the goal and the process of getting from one point to another.
While conflict resolution focuses on de-escalation of conflict and diffusion of crises, transformation allows for an
ebb and flow in conflict, and sees the presenting problem as a potential opportunity to transform the relationship
and the systems in which relationships are embedded”. John Paul Lederach, Reina Neufeldt, and Hal Culberston,
Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring, and Learning Toolkit (John Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2007).
37
Burton, John Wear, Conflict and Communication: The Use of Controlled Communication in International
Relations. New York: The Free Press. 1969. Kelman HC. The problem-solving workshop in conflict resolution. In: R.L.
Merritt (Ed.), Communication in international politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press; 1972. pp. 168-204
 16

Kelman developed Problem Solving Workshops as one tool of Interactive Conflict Resolution which

focused analytically on human needs. Conflict practitioners need tools for addressing the other four as

well as integrative approaches allowing to deal with all five simultaneously. It follows that in order to

address all five sources of non-negotiability, the practitioner’s toolkit should be extended beyond problem

solving workshops, as explained below in the four sections below (B – E). Importantly however, in line

with Kelman’s theoretical and methodological emphasis on interactivity with respect to addressing forms

of non-negotiability which stem from human needs, it seems that interaction is a central and necessary

building block in advancing the unlocking also of the other four types of non-negotiability.38

B. Interactive (situated activity): Merely developing awareness of absolute rigidities can help when only

one side has a non-negotiable position. This could be achieved through dialogue – direct or indirect.

However, when both sides have colliding external commitments, an agreement might require expanding

the stakeholders involved in the external commitments.39 Returning to the example given above, the two

co-workers would need to interact with the ailing mother’s caregiver in order to unlock non-negotiability

stemming from the caregiver’s schedule.

C. Institutions (social settings): When institutional commitments prevent agreement, conflict parties

would face a choice between finding limited agreements within this institutional reality and, more

ambitiously and at times impossibly, working to change the institutional environment. It is worth recalling

that when micro level conflicts occur within meso- or macro-level social institutions, individuals often take

38
Kelman studies conflict as “an interactive process with escalatory, self-perpetuating dynamics” and suggests that
“conflict resolution efforts, therefore, require promotion of a different kind of interaction, capable of reversing the
escalatory and self-perpetuating dynamics of conflict”. Kelman HC. Social-Psychological Dimensions of
International Conflict. In: I.W. Zartman (Ed.), Peacemaking in international conflict: Methods & techniques (rev.
ed.). Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace; 2007. pp. 61-107.
39
This is in line with negotiation theory recommendations: “While this may seem counterintuitive, bringing more
groups to the negotiation table might actually create greater opportunities for a stable agreement”.
Kaufman Sanda, Ozawa Connie, Shmueli Deborah, “Negotiations in the public sector: Applying negotiation theory
to multiparty conflicts”, Négociations, 2018/1, No. 29, pp. 59-73.
 17

the meso and macro level realities for granted rather than as a variable they can work to change. Building

on the example above, PS leaders could, for instance, interact directly with their pan European party in

order to secure a formal exception for the relevant matter in order to unlock non-negotiability.

D. Structural power relations: When structures of domination exist and yet recognition dynamics are a

key part of the conflict, careful sequencing of conflict transformation steps might prove key in terms of

weaving together structural and cultural changes. Palestinians habitually rule out recognizing historic

Jewish attachment to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea given Israeli control

over, and settlement activities in, the West Bank/Judea and Samaria. There are indications that gradual

reduction in Israeli rule over Palestinian life, in tandem with an increase in Palestinian self-rule, could be

coupled with Palestinian acts of recognition of Jewish attachments.40 Because the dominated party will

usually seek to frontload structural change (reduce oppressive structures) and the dominating party will

demand cultural symbolic acts of recognition (reduce denial of its core values), there is often a significant

need for a sequencing of both the announcement of the agreed changes and their implementation in

order to overcome intersecting non-negotiabilities.

E. Cultural realm – worldviews and collective beliefs: When conflict parties hold disparate worldviews

and/or evince commitment to protected values, there are two broad possible paths. The first is creating

a peace architecture that acknowledges these worldviews and respects their rigidities. In deeply

heterogeneous societies, i.e. in societies defined by the absence of a single hegemonic worldview,

overcoming these rigidities when negotiating agreements requires crafting treaties and arrangements

40
In the 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II), the Palestinian leadership agreed that the Palestinian Authority (PA)
would coordinate unhindered access for Jews to their holy sites in PA-ruled areas. More recently, the Palestinian
Ambassador to the United States stated that “Once a state of Palestine is established, once that state has East
Jerusalem as its capital, that city will not only recognize the Jewish connection, but we will celebrate the Jewish
connection to Jerusalem”. Eric Cortellessa, “PLO Envoy: A Palestinian State would ‘celebrate Jewish connection to
Jerusalem’”, Times of Israel, 16 April 2018.
 18

which cohere with several worldviews simultaneously.41 In such circumstances negotiations should not

aim to produce a single document constructed from within a particular worldview but rather to produce

a treaty which could be justified within several worldviews. For instance, as I elaborated elsewhere, “in

the Israeli-Palestinian case, peacemakers will need to produce at least five different documents: a rights-

based treaty between the PLO and Israel forming the contractual agreement itself; a Zionism-inspired

victory speech for the Israeli leader to explain the rightness of the treaty within the bounds of nationalist

ideology; a Palestinian nationalism-inspired victory speech for the Palestinian leader to do the same; a

Jewish sermon to laud the achieved peace as religiously correct; and likewise an Islamic sermon to also

affirm it as religiously desirable”.42 Negotiators aiming for such an outcome would do well to consider the

four following recommendations: “First, allow for multiple concurrent justifications and reasons to

support such policy; second, actively strive for holders of competing worldviews to formulate justifications

that fit their own perspectives; third, design policy steps in ways that can be congruent with the disparate,

pertinent worldviews; and fourth, enable meaningful ways to express reservations, demur, and

discomfort regarding the policy”.43

The second path, which is particularly necessary when conflict parties hold an absolute commitment to

the same disputed entity (i.e. they hold colliding protected values) is that authoritative elites would

reinterpret (“reframe”) the protecting values in a way which provides greater leeway for conflict

transformation. Atran and Axelrod’s seminal article on this approach provides several interpretative paths

including shifting the context and provisionally prioritizing values. “Shifting the context” is described

41
Jayne Docherty. (2001). Learning Lessons from Waco: When Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table,
Syracuse University Press. Zalzberg, Ofer. 2019. “Beyond Liberal Peacemaking: Lessons from Israeli-Palestinian
Diplomatic Peacemaking.” Review of Middle East Studies 53(1). See also Seul in this volume.
42
Zalzberg, Ofer. 2019. “Beyond Liberal Peacemaking: Lessons from Israeli-Palestinian Diplomatic Peacemaking.”
Review of Middle East Studies 53(1).
43
Ofer Zalzberg and Roie Ravitzky, “Negotiations in Heterogeneous Societies: Ratifying a Peace Agreement in
Israel,” Negotiation Journal 38, no. 3 (2022).
 19

through Stalin’s shift of geographic scope during the 1920s from the “goal of a world victory for

communism to an indefinite future when he declared communism in one country to have priority”.

“Provisionally prioritizing values” is described as “Fulfilling one sacred value may require delay in achieving

others”. Two examples are given: “To save the American Union, President Abraham Lincoln was willing to

postpone emancipation. Similarly, Israeli leader David Ben Gurion was willing to accept a partition of

Palestine that left Israel without control over historical Judea or Jerusalem in order to attain statehood”.

44
Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook determined that Jews should be absolutely committed to Israeli rule over historic

Palestine / the Land of Israel, because of an inseparable bond between the Jewish people and the biblically

promised land, and be ready to give their lives in order to prevent compromise over it. Yet Rabbi Yehuda

Amital allowed for territorial partition when he reinterpreted the relationship between the Jewish people,

the Jewish religion and the biblically promised land when he articulated a hierarchy among the central

values of Kook’s thought in the following order: The People of Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the Land of

Israel.45

Crucially, the unlocking of worldview differences and protected values through either path is a worldview-

specific effort. Namely, what seems locked to from the bounds of certain worldviews is open (negotiable)

from the viewpoint of others. Because protected values are worldview-specific, so are acts which unlock

them and open the door to transactional diplomacy.46 Therefore, unlocking of protected values requires

44
Atran, Scott and Robert Axelrod. 2008. “Refraining Sacred Values”. Negotiation Journal, 24 (3), 221–246. Bitter,
Jean Nicolas. 2011. “Transforming Conflicts with Religious Dimensions: Using the Cultural-Linguistic Model”.
Politorbis, 52 (2), 27-32. .
45
The fact that few followed Rabbi Amital’s re-interpretation indicates that hermeneutics are uncertain to achieve
traction among holders of the protected value. For a discussion of the potential and limitations of interpretation of
protected values see Ofer Zalzberg, “Non-Negotiability in Conflict: Religious Zionist Attachments to Land and
Temple in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (PhD diss, Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, 2023).
46
The seminal 1988 UN Speech of PLO head Yasser Arafat unlocked the U.S. position toward the PLO, which
consequently opened diplomatic relations with it, but not the Israeli government. The 1993 Declaration of
Principles resonated strongly among adherents of Labor Zionism. However, adherents of revisionist and Religious
Zionism remained locked because of the decisive role their ideology accords to Palestinian recognition of Jewish
nationhood and of deeming modern Jewish immigration to the land as a return to Zion. Zalzberg Ofer, The Israeli-
 20

worldview mapping of a conflict. Such worldview mapping needs to include mapping of protected values

(see Seul, this volume).47

4. Regulating Conflict While Unlocking Non-Negotiability

There are conceivable ways to overcome the five types of non-negotiability and expand the possibilities

for transactional diplomacy but they can take considerable periods of time. All too often, the policy

conversation regarding conflict situations in which non-negotiability is salient turns to examining various

new solutions instead of unlocking non-negotiability that precludes all forms of diplomatic transactions

and hence prevents any solution, irrespective of its contours. For instance, exploring whether the Sri

Lankan or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved through a one-state, two-state, federative or

confederative model, can be a futile exercise when the source of non-negotiability is a collective belief

regarding the need to maintain exclusive rule over the entire territory. Such engagement with solutionism

is all too common in the face of protracted conflicts, and is often based on a false assumption that the

lack of progress stems primarily from a failure to find an agreed upon vision. That said, expert or academic

evaluation of possible solutions can always help. Public campaign in favor of different comprehensive

solution formulas can cause harm when holders of protected values experience them as a threat to their

deepest beliefs, and therefore decide to mobilize and counter. Drawing on Lederach’s above-mentioned

clarification regarding the differences between conflict resolution and conflict transformation, this

chapter’s emphasis on non-negotiability suggests that rather than engage in solutionism, with a conflict

resolution mindset, peacemakers ought to focus on unlocking non-negotiability, with a conflict

transformation mindset. Returning to our examples, such an approach should focus on the fact that an

exclusivist belief precludes all parity-based formulas. With respect to this type of value-based non-

Palestinian Conflict: Conflict Transformation Across Worldviews and Advancing ‘Religious Peace’, dIAk, 2021, pp. 6-
31.
47
For further details on conducting such mapping see Jeff Seul in this volume.
 21

negotiability, as noted above, efforts should consequently focus on devising a peace architecture which

symbolically acknowledges the protected values and/or on ways to reframe the belief.

In parallel, as long as the conflict exists, regulating it can both limit its intensity and ease the task of

unlocking non-negotiability. Indeed, in such circumstances conflict transformation might most usefully

focus on regulating the conflict by producing partial agreements, perhaps of an interim nature.48 Such

agreements could intently consist of efforts to help the parties agree to disagree on some issues, not least

by allowing mutually exclusive claims to persist be it tacitly or explicitly. Less ambitiously, conflict

transformation efforts might aim to reduce the intensity of the conflict and set in motion processes

advancing an unlocking of non-negotiability, through informal understandings and less than formal

arrangements.

The literature on modus vivendis, in the sense of arrangements which respect the contradictory values of

the parties involved in the dispute, is highly relevant in this respect.49 Modus vivendi arrangements — the

rules that enable a peaceful coexistence among stakeholders pursuing disparate, colliding political

projects — “are, first of all, institutions that enable us to live together in peace under circumstances of

disagreement and conflict”.50 Pursuing a modus vivendi is therefore helpful when seeking a non-

harmonious arrangement of relations between parties.

At core, from a process perspective, when regulating conflict while unlocking non-negotiability, decision

makers would face a judgement call about having gathered sufficient political backing for a sizable

48
Kelman indicates that efforts can aim at resolving particular issues rather than achieving comprehensive
resolution. “The task is to work together in developing new ideas for resolving the conflict, or particular issues
within it, that are responsive to the fundamental needs and fears of both sides...". Kelman HC. Building Trust
Among Enemies: The Central Challenge for International Conflict Resolution. International Journal of Intercultural
Relations. 2005;29 (6) :639-650.
49
John Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Horton, John; Westphal, Manon & Willems,
Ulrich (eds.). The Political Theory of Modus Vivendi. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag, 2000.
50
Fabian Wendt, “The Moral Standing of Modus Vivendi Arrangements,” Public Affairs Quarterly 30, no. 4 (2016),
351.
 22

transformative step which ideally both regulates the conflict and advances unlocking of non-negotiability.

Decision makers might want to reduce the step’s size or choose to give unlocking efforts more time in

order to build greater political will. The more decision makers are clear eyed about conflict non-

negotiability – which stakeholders deem which issues to be non-negotiable and for what reasons – their

strategic decisions would be better informed. Further research into methodologies for mapping non-

negotiability would be helpful and should become a part of Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA)

frameworks.51 Conflict analysis can fruitfully study intractability through a systematic exploration of non-

negotiability within a conflict context. Because a conflict can include several phenomena of non-

negotiability, which could intersect with each other, unlocking processes may require attentiveness to

sequencing and to the effect of transformative actions on addressing of several sources of non-

negotiability simultaneously.

5. Conclusion
Conflict transformation should embrace a multi-faceted analysis of non-negotiability. Not only (individual)

needs can prove non-negotiable. So can interactive dynamics; institutionalized settings; power relations

and resource divisions; and worldview differences and collective beliefs. Non-negotiability results in an

impasse for classical conflict resolution approaches. Assuming negotiability when advancing resolution

through compromise can trigger escalation. Mapping non-negotiability of various types is therefore

crucial in order to abide by the do no harm principle and to advance mutually beneficial outcomes.

Unlocking non-negotiability is needed to enable transactional diplomacy.

Conflict resolution needs a typology of non-negotiability, perhaps building on the rudimentary heuristic

typology offered here, such that it could develop pertinent strategies for overcoming each type of non-

51
Ross, Marc Howard. 2003. ‘PCIA as a Peacebuilding Tool’, Berghof Handbook Dialogue, 1: 77-81. Berlin: Berghof
Research Center.
 23

negotiability. When a conflict mapping indicates that non-negotiability is salient among powerful

stakeholders, the focus should shift to non-solution-focused conflict transformation with an emphasis on

unlocking non-negotiability and maintaining interaction. While unlocking efforts take place, definitive

resolution should be avoided in favor of partial, transformative steps regarding negotiable issues that aim

to narrow gaps between conflict parties in mutually beneficial ways.

This is an original manuscript of a Routledge book chapter, available at

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003340522.

Ofer Zalzberg, Engaging in the Face of Non-Negotiability: From Resolution to Transformation, In Tamra
Pearson d’Estrée (ed.), Shifting Protracted Conflict Systems Through Local Interactions Extending
Kelman’s Legacy, Routledge, 2024, 311-328.

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