Deadlocks in International Negotiations

In: Cooperation and conflict: journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, Band 29, Heft 3, S. 211-244

Abstract

The subject of this article is how deadlocks in international negotiations may be solved. Despite the fact that deadlock is a common phenomenon in international negotiations, this subject has received little attention from negotiation theorists. This analysis, which is based on five instances of deadlocks that occurred during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, focuses on (a) the negotiating parties' attempts and ability to solve deadlocks by coercion and persuasion, package deals and fractionating, and innovations, (b) how non-controversial elements, uncertainty, vagueness, symbolic formulas and residual disagreement can be used to solve deadlocks, and (c) how the perceptions of the negotiation and the presence of internal negotiations may limit the negotiation parties' possibilities to solve deadlocks. The analysis shows that innovations that are non-controversial, in the sense that they are hard to relate to the positions of the parties in terms of concessions or retractions, may play an important role in solving deadlocks. Furthermore, it indicates that agreements that follow deadlocks are often characterized by uncertainty, vagueness, symbolic formulas and residual disagreement.