Incentives to Negotiate

Abstract

The process of negotiation is a chain of interlocking choices. The parties must first decide if they are going to negotiate at all, and if so, whether they will adopt competitive or cooperative strategies. They also must choose when and where to meet, whether to confer publicly or privately, and what should be on the agenda. Likewise, each negotiator must decide when to tender an offer and how to respond to a demand. Ultimately, the parties must decide whether to ratify a possible settlement, continue negotiating, or even leave the bargaining table. (In fact, as we shall see later in this book, after an agreement is reached, the parties may be faced with choices about whether to breach it in whole or in part.) All these choices are interlocking in that the decisions made by one party often affect the options available to the other.