Lecture 5: Making of Diplomacy:

Decisions and Relations

Module: Introduction to Diplomacy
ADIG, 08 November 2016
Dr Tatevik Mnatsakanyan
Email: T.Mnatsakanyan@lboro.ac.uk
 Diplomatic Contexts and
Tasks

Source: Bjola and Kornprobst 2013: 78.

 Negotiations
Churchill and Stalin Negotiation, 1944:
Churchill to Stalin: “So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it
do for you to have ninety per cent. predominance in Roumania, for us to have
ninety per cent. of the say in Greece, and go fifty—fifty about Yugoslavia?“
 Negotiations
• Definition: ‘Negotiation is an interpersonal decision making
necessary whenever we cannot achieve our objectives single-
handedly’(Thomson 2009: 2).

• ‘[J]oint decision-making… In negotiations the parties are left

to themselves to combine their conflicting points of view into
a single decision (Zartman, 1977: 621–3).

Complex contexts, cross-cutting of issues & actors

[recall lecture 2]
 Negotiations
What Determines/Affects Negotiations?–
Models/Explanations

- Rational choice (Game Theory)

- Game theory revised (Liberal Institutionalism)
- Emotions/Perceptions
- Status and prestige
- Different occupational cultures
- Social Construction powers (Norms creation) of
international organisations
 Negotiations and Decision Making:
Rational Choice
• Game Theory: e.g. Prisoner’s Dilemma

Critique:
1) homogenizes actors
2) assumes symmetrical relations
3) emphasize instrumentality
4) favour bilateral encounters
5) disregards context and institutions
6) Is static (Jonsson 2002).
 Negotiations and Decision Making:
Rational Choice
• Game theory revised
Nash; Axelrod: (Liberal Institutionalism)
- Context (malleable)
- Iteration (“shadow of the future”)
- Payoff structures
- Mutuality of interests ---
PERCEPTIONS are important
(e.g. pre- WWI ‘cult of the offensive’
 expansion of territories and aggressive war
 spiral of mobilisation and counter-mobilization) (Axelrod and Keohane 1985)

INSTITUTIONS and Regimes

Issue linkages: ‘attempts to gain additional bargaining leverage by making one’s
behaviour on a given issue contingent on others’ actions towards other issues’ (ibid.:
239).  Trading with votes
Domestic-International: e.g. the TTIP negotiations? [lecture 2]
Incompatibilities: More than one game, more than one actor.
 Negotiations and Decision Making:
Rational Choice Challenged?
• Emotions/Perceptions- Psychological approaches
Habits; analogies (e.g. the Munich analogy) (Hopf 2010; Bjola & Kornprobst 2013)

• Logic of appropriateness (vs consequentialism): rules have

identity-constituting and normative dimensions (Mark and Olsen
2004)
• Social Construction powers of international organisations,
i.e. shaping, making and changing of norms and expectations, hence
perceptions and logics of appropriateness (Barnett and Finnemore 1999)
 Negotiations and Decision Making:
Rational Choice Challenged?

• Logic of Practices: Sociologist P. Bourdieu

-Habitus, ‘the matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions’
(1977). Predisposes actors
-Field: power; stakes and doxa.
• Status and prestige: e.g. International “packing orders”
 Case Study: Iran Nuclear Deal
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),
signed July 2015 -- designed to block Iran's paths to
a nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting of sanctions
• Main issue: Iran’s violation of nuclear
nonproliferation regime, -- International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and disclosure
requirements
• Main negotiating actors: Parties to negotiations: UN
SC P5 +1 (Germany) and Iran; The EU

• Indirect players: Israel and Saudi Arabia

• Context: Fast globalising economy; Iran paying

high prices for tightening sanctions; new moderate
Iranian government; Destabilised Middle East
causing more concern
 Case Study: Iran Nuclear Deal
Further Factors:
-Iranian Media: Iranian reporters got
unique access:
"Every day, the diplomats and the media
were playing an interesting game with the
public," Mortazavi (an intendent journalist)
says. "The public was present in the negotiating
room on the Iranian side."
• Balcony Diplomacy
-Domestic pressures
 Case Study: Iran Nuclear Deal
• Faming of the negotiations:
Compliance vs Fairness (Perkovich 2016)
P5+1- This is a matter of complying with existing international rules (Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, UN resolutions)
Iran- This is a bargaining matter since it is an issue of fairness, and double standards
by the West.
However, consider ‘the politics that flow from the distribution of power within the
international system. In practice, this makes it difficult to separate compliance with rules
from debates over fairness’ (ibid.: 33).
Issue of Int’s Security and Credibility of US leadership to maintain it vs Issue of
Sovereignty and Security
(matter of pride)
 Gradual acceptance that Iran will
develop nuclear capabilities, and
shifting to slowing down and limiting it.
 Case Study: Iran Nuclear Deal
• Research Question: [Discuss in Groups]
Which theoretical models/tools could shed most light on the
successful outcome of the Iran negotiations?

--Classic Prisoner’s Dilemma?

--Revised rational choice models?
--Psychological approaches?
--Logic of appropriateness (identity-constituting norms and
perceptions)?
-- Logic of practices?
--More?
 Presentation
• An individual Oral Presentation on a chosen topic critically
assessing one of the major thematic areas around diplomacy
(10 minutes presentation, 5 minutes question and answer, 40%).
Date: 12th December 2016
Time and room to be announced.

By next week’s lecture, design your own questions.

(You will have a list to choose from, but best marks will be given to those
designing their own question critically engaging with one of the themes in
more depth and empirical analysis)