The Interaction Effects of Bargaining Power: The Interplay Between Veto Power, Asymmetric Interdependence, Reputation, and Audience Costs

Abstract

In international relations, different rationalistic theories have developed to explain negotiators’ behavior and the outcomes of negotiations. The compatibility and interaction effects between the different forms of bargaining power, however, remain unexplored. In this article, I seek to fill this gap by connecting four rationalistic concepts of bargaining power: veto power, asymmetric interdependence, reputation, and audience costs. By showing that domestic veto players are only semiveto players in international politics – because they can veto an improvement but not a deterioration of the status quo – threats based on asymmetric interdependence to disrupt a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship can be connected to veto power; the incompatibility of the factors concerned would otherwise make this impossible. The combination of veto power and asymmetric interdependence, however, raises a theoretical question: Will rational actors ever approve a deterioration of the status quo? Theories of reputation and audience costs can help answer this question. According to these approaches, threatening parties suffer ex post costs when they back down from their own threats. This theoretical analysis sheds new light on how different forms of bargaining power interact with each other and also helps to address some of the theoretical inconsistencies of the original individual concepts. Finally, this analysis suggests some of the weaknesses of empirical studies that have neglected these interaction effects.

Audience, agenda setting, and issue salience in international negotiations

“…The following proposed explanation provides an alternative causal mechanism for audience costs and thus avoids the aforementioned criticism. Instead of referring to the audience’s focus on possible damage to the national honor, the following causal mechanism is based on agenda setting, issue framing, and asymmetric information (for interaction effects of audience costs with other forms of bargaining power see Janusch, 2018). Governments can shape public opinion by setting the agenda and framing issues in favorable ways, inter alia because they have an informational advantage in foreign policy over their domestic audiences (Shapiro and Jacobs, 2002).…”

Business Negotiating Tactics: Modern Approaches and Inspirational Revenue-Increasing Tools

“…movements that stimulate the emotional stimuli of body); hand gestures; regulators which monitor, control, coordinate or maintain speech of the other participant; adapters, i.e. gestures that satisfy personal needs [20]; body appearance; mimics; vision; spatial intimate, personal, social and public distances; colors; clothes, ornaments, fragrances; room decoration; smell; gifts; touches; silence; use of time. The advantage of verbal communication is immediate feedback, flexibility and specification of emotional and non-verbal signals.…”

“…A business partner is seen as an enemy who must be defeated by all available and pressure instruments to achieve desired goal. The losing party tries to withdraw from a disadvantageous agreement, not to accept it or to repay his/her defeat, therefore it does not always bring this style of negotiation a guaranteed success, comment [20].…”

Explaining the deadlock of the European social dialogue: negotiating in the shadow of hierarchy

“…In order to do so, we, following Janusch (2018), develop a framework of semi-veto actors in the SoH combining the theories of "veto players" and "asymmetrical dependency" that contribute to the existing literature in two important ways. First, our analysis provides a more nuanced explanation of the outcome of key ESD negotiations that shows the complex role of SoH in reaching an agreement.…”