Abstract
There are hardly any instances of international negotiations, in which states do not at least partially recur to bargaining strategies. This article argues that bargaining power is ultimately a social construction, depending on perceptions about the plausibility of the realisation of a threat. Effective bargaining rests on the credibility of the threats made (e.g. no-vote, veto). Thus, even weak states can sometimes manipulate the threat-potential of seemingly more powerful actors and, thereby, punch above their weight in international negotiations. To trigger a loss of bargaining power, these states need to apply lock-in strategies that create linkages between the issue on the international negotiation agenda and other international or sub-level norms or policy commitments. Once such linkages are made, international-level bargaining threats of formerly powerful actors lose credibility as carrying them out would bring about severe reputation damages. This article distinguishes between different lock-in strategies and draws on three case studies (UNGA resolutions on African descend, on Myanmar, and on the Latin American Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone) to provide an empirical plausibility probe on the scope conditions under which the lock-in strategies are effective in reducing the power of seemingly strong actors in international negotiations.
Introduction
With the spread of international regimes and organisations, the number of negotiations that take place between states has increased tremendously and has, consequently, received wide scholarly attention. 1 International negotiations are by their very nature a communicative exercise, in which attachés, diplomats, ambassadors, ministers or even heads of state and governments use a broad series of argumentative and bargaining strategies in order to further national interests. 2 Most importantly, the strategies can only be effective in promoting national positions if the reasons provided and threats issued are plausible. Effective bargaining rests on the credibility of the threats made (e.g. no-vote, veto). While the type of threats that can be employed is contingent upon the nature of the context (e.g. voting in international organizations [IOs], economic leverage in trade negotiations, military power in looming inter-state wars), this article argues that bargaining power is ultimately a social construction, depending on perceptions about the plausibility of the realisation of a threat. 3
In institutionalised negotiations, not only large states but also seemingly weak actors can sometimes manipulate the threat-potential of seemingly more powerful states and thereby punch above their weight in international negotiations. To this end, the actor needs to link the item that is currently on the negotiation table to either consensual international hard or soft law, or to previously made domestic commitments or domestic norms. On the basis of this framing, the targeted state risks losing international or domestic reputation, if its continued opposition to the issue at stake in international negotiations would cause it to violate either international hard or soft law, or strong domestic norms. Potential reputational damages entrap the state, as a consequence of which bargaining threats with negative votes or vetoes lose their credibility and the respective state its leverage. This article theorises under which scope conditions lock-in strategies work and provides three illustrative case studies. In general, a lock-in strategy is a strategy to obtain influence in negotiations by delimiting the bargaining power of opposing third states and de facto disable them from carrying out threats. In conducting a lock-in strategy, an actor links the contested issue which is currently under negotiation to another, already prevalent strong commitment or norm (international, regional or domestic) that it recognised by the third state. Thus, if the third state would carry out its bargaining threat (e.g. in voting against the issue on the negotiation agenda), it simultaneously risks losses in reputation as it would be violating a strongly institutionalised norm or the state’s commitment. Thus, effective lock-in strategies deconstruct bargaining power of third states, thereby entrapping formerly opposed states so that the latter are stopped from pursuing their initial negotiation positions and might even shift into supporting the issue in question. In order words, if effective, lock-in strategies lead to the entrapment of targeted states.
Theoretically this article distinguishes between international and sub-level lock-ins. For a successful manipulation of the credibility of threats, it is essential that the state concerned would lose either international or sub-level (regional, domestic) reputation if its own threat was carried out. International reputational damages are more likely the lower the number of states who can be singled out as clearly violating an international norm or a previous international commitment through carrying out a bargaining threat. Also, the more important the adherence of regional or domestic norms or the policy-commitments to which the international issue is positively linked are for the constituency back home or the peers on the regional sub-level, the more successful international actors should be in manipulating the bargaining power of other states through lock-in strategies. In order to demonstrate the plausibility of the two hypotheses, the article presents three case studies, selected according to a most similar systems design. One case study exemplifies high international reputational damages. The case study on the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone resolution in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) shows that a small number of seemingly powerful actors (the nuclear-weapon states) tried to deviate from previous normative international commitments, but were singled out. In the wake of looming international reputational damages, the bargaining threats of the four states concerned lost their credibility and the countries gave in without executing the threats. The second case study concerns the African descent resolution of the UNGA, and shows how South Africa and other African countries stopped exercising bargaining threats after lock-in effects had taken place. While international norms to create reputational costs were absent, the international bargaining threat lost credibility because its exercise would have violated commitments already in place on the domestic and sub-levels, which, in turn, would have created severe reputational damages. In the third case study, domestic and international scope conditions for the effectiveness of lock-in strategies were absent, as there were neither international, nor sub-level norms or commitments into which the states using bargaining threats on the international level could have been locked in. As a consequence, the bargaining power of the targeted actors was not reduced in case of the Myanmar resolution and states, such as India and many others, could and did carry out their threats, thus influencing the negotiation dynamics and outcomes in the UNGA. The empirical analysis rests on an analysis of official documents and newspapers as well as on a series of semi-structured interviews with the diplomats conducted between June 2010 and March 2012.
This article provides important insights into state-of-the-art research on the social construction of bargaining power. So far, research has demonstrated that entrapment can occur in highly institutionalised settings with a high norm density and a collective identity, such as the European Union 4 but also among a small number of actors in less strongly institutionalised international negotiation settings. 5 This article takes these arguments a step further and shows not only that entrapment can be purposefully constructed through international as well as sub-level (regional and domestic) lock-in strategies, but also that such a strategy can be even effective in IOs with a large, heterogeneous membership. Furthermore, the African descent case exemplifies that lock-in strategies can even work for international negotiation items that cannot be linked to international norms as such, but only to domestic norms or commitments. Thus, this article shows that not only legitimisation strategies are important for contentious international negotiations, 6 but also delegitimisation strategies. As the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone case illustrates, lock-in strategies trigger the delegitimisation of certain positions and, thereby, allow even seemingly weaker actors to reduce the bargaining leverage of stronger ones, so that they can punch above their weight. 7
Theory
In international negotiations, states can engage in arguing, in which they seek to further their interests in persuading the other actors on the basis of good and compelling reasons. At the same time, states also engage in bargaining in which they directly or indirectly voice threats, such as flagging which red lines need to be taken on board to ensure the agreement of the respective state (demands), or in which they make promises and offer concessions in reaction to such explicit or implicit threats. 8 Both making arguments and voicing threats is a communicative exercise which is embedded in a structure of international and domestic institutional rules, norms and roles. This can constitute a basis for power, 9 not only because it defines the rules of the game (e.g. who participates in the negotiations and how outcomes are passed), but also because the domestic and the international negotiation context specify what is considered as appropriate. 10
So far studies have shown that the normative framework can become important during negotiations beyond the nation-state. Once states start to make arguments that are supportive of embedded collective norms, they cannot easily revoke their commitment – even if it has been only rhetorical in nature. 11 The example of accession negotiations in the European Union has illustrated that if rhetorically committed states stop supporting the norm in question, they ‘damage their credibility as community members’. 12 As a consequence of normative entrapment, states ultimately support a policy that they had initially opposed (in this case Eastern enlargement).
However, the entrapment of specific states is not only a by-product of their own strategic action, 13 it can also be purposefully constructed by other actors through lock-in strategies. 14 Effective lock-in strategies reduce the bargaining power – even of seemingly powerful actors. Such strategies can even be effective in IOs that are considerably less integrated than the European Union as well as in the absence of strong collective international norms or identities.
At their core, lock-in strategies trigger a loss of bargaining power: Due to linkages between the issue on the international negotiation agenda and already institutionalised norms or policy commitments, bargaining threats lose credibility as carrying them out would bring about severe reputation damages. Lock-in strategies consist of two components. In the first step negotiators engage in framing. They link an item on the international negotiation agenda either to another legal document, such as a convention, treaty or resolution to which the other country has already agreed, or to sub-level (regional or domestic) norms or commitments the state has made previously. On this basis diplomats can push the other state into giving up their opposition to the international negotiation issue. To this end, states can point out in a second step that not living up to previous international, regional or national policy or normative commitments, for example through voting against an issue that reflects these commitments, will trigger a loss of reputation in the international negotiation context, the regional group or back home. 15 In a context of looming reputational damages, threats to block international negotiation outcomes or vote against an outcome document lose credibility. Hence, if the lock-in strategy is effective, formerly powerful states have lost bargaining power, and are therefore more likely to accept a specific negotiation outcome.
Yet, the manipulation of the credibility of threats through a lock-in strategy is not per se effective, but works only under certain scope conditions. Since the effectiveness depends on the ability of actors to construct reputational damages in case a threat is carried out, the scope conditions for the effectiveness of the strategies focus on this very aspect. In general, the lock-in strategy is increasingly effective the more severe the potential reputational damages for falling short in living up to one’s own previous commitments are in a specific case. Two elements are essential in this respect. First, the lower the number of deviating actors who can be singled out as violating an international norm or commitment through carrying out a bargaining threat, the more severe international reputational damages will be. Secondly, the greater the importance of and the less ambivalent the domestic or regional norms or commitments to which the international negotiation issue is positively linked and which would be violated through executing the bargaining threat on the international level, the higher sub-level reputational damages will be.
Thus, the severity of expected international and domestic reputational damages influences the success of lock-in strategies. The lower the number of states who can be singled out as violating an international norm through carrying out a bargaining threat, the more likely it is that actors will be successful at reducing their bargaining power through lock-in strategies (hypothesis 1). Vice versa, lock-in strategies should fail to manipulate the bargaining power of states if the number of actors who would violate an international norm through exercising the bargaining threat is high, so that singling out individual countries is more difficult. In addition, the more important the adherence of the sub-level norms or policy commitments to which the international issue is positively linked are for the constituency back home or the peers in the sub-level group respectively, the more successful actors should be in manipulating the bargaining power of other states through lock-in strategies (hypothesis 2). Vice versa, lock-in strategies should fail to reduce the bargaining power of states if the domestic or regional norm or policy commitment to which the international issue is linked is either not important for the respective constituency, or does not reinforce but undermine support of the international issue. 16
The subsequent section provides an empirical plausibility probe for both hypotheses. To this end it focuses on negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and analyses the negotiations of three resolutions that feature variation in regard to the specified scope conditions for the effectiveness of the lock-in strategy. In the first case, the international reputational damages were high (Latin American Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone resolution, see empirics section), while the domestic reputational costs were high in the second case (African descent resolution, see empirics section). Singling out individual countries was not easily possible in the third case (resolution of human rights situation in Myanmar, see empirics section), in which the domestic constituency also did not create reputational damages for carrying out bargaining -threats. On the basis of this structure-focused comparison, lock-in strategies should successfully reduce the bargaining power of opposing states in the African descent and the Latin American Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone resolution cases, but not in case of the Myanmar resolution.
Empirics – Three Case Studies
International-level Lock-in: The Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Case
The Treaty of Tlatelolco from 1967 was the very first international treaty that established a Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone (NWFZ). 17 The parties in the region obligate themselves to remain nuclear weapon free and obtain negative security assurances 18 from the five nuclear weapon states (P-5), the US, China, Russia, France and Great Britain, which were specified in the protocols. When ratifying the latter, France, the UK and the US and Russia issued interpretative declarations concerning reservations of their obligations vis-a-vis the non-nuclear weapon states, which de facto allowed them to reconsider their negative security assurances under certain scope conditions. 19 China did not express reservations as such, but reiterated that it has a strict policy of not being a first mover when it comes to the usage of nuclear weapons.
After the Treaty of Tlatelolco had entered into force, the Latin American countries tabled several resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in order to reaffirm the treaty, which were usually passed by consensus. In October 2010, the draft resolution requested the P5 states to withdraw their interpretative declarations in the third operative paragraph.
20
This was not in the interest of the nuclear weapon states (interviews UNmission#56, 11.03.11, UNmission#72, 24.03.11). Accordingly, the P5 requested that the paragraph on interpretative declarations should be deleted, and pointed out that they would call for a vote in the UNGA otherwise (interviews UNmission#46, 08.03.11, UNmission#131, 30.11.11). The bargaining threat with a no-vote was severe, as the reaffirming character of the Latin American NWFZ Treaty of the resolution would be severely diminished if the P5 – as the only other parties to the Treaty –rejected the resolution (interviews UNmission#131, 30.11.11, UNmission#151, 20.12.11). The sponsors of the resolution used the lock-in strategy. They stressed that removing the paragraph on interpretative declarations altogether was not an option, because such a withdrawal would resemble a step back from the 2010 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review outcome document. Action 9 of the final outcome document explicitly stated that the ‘concerned states are encouraged to review any related reservations’ (interviews UNmission#153, 19.01.12, UNmission#129, 29.11.11).
21
France and the US reacted and pointed out that their respective parliaments had ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the protocols on the basis of the interpretative declarations, so that changes of the latter cannot be made ex post (interviews UNmission#46, 08.03.11, UNmission#129, 29.11.11, UNmission#131, 30.11.11). Irrespective of this point, the sponsors of the 2010 resolution continued to frame the resolution in terms of the NPT outcome document and pointed out that the resolution has merely been updated in order to reflect the outcomes of the 2010 NPT review conference. The sponsors argued that not agreeing to update the resolution in line with the consensual NPT outcome document would call the results of the 2010 NPT conference into question and that disregarding formerly agreed norms would generally reflect badly on the affected states:
22
‘if one of the actions contained therein is not acceptable three months afterwards, all of the agreements that you made during the NPT Review Conference have no value, because you will break them just as easily as you break this one. So when it comes to a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East, when we’re talking about moving forward towards nuclear disarmament, when we’re talking about transparency, everything we have achieved for us has no value because you are just showing us right now that the NPT document has no value for you because it’s something that you cannot accept a month later.’ It was literally like that, and then again that put them in a very uncomfortable position. (interview UNmission#131, 30.11.11)
The lock-in strategy created international reputational costs, since France, the UK, Russia and the US could easily be singled out as not honouring a formerly agreed-upon legal norm although these countries prided themselves as rigorous supporters of the NPT (interviews UNmission#46, 08.03.11). As expected, the lock-in strategy worked vis-a-vis the nuclear weapon states. They all support the Non-Proliferation-Treaty regime and would have suffered from losses of international reputation, as they could have been easily singled out as norm violators if they undermined the NPT and the respective consensual outcome document through the backdoor in voting against the 2010 Latin American NWFZ resolution. Consequently, their bargaining power was severely reduced. Since no-vote threats have lost credibility, the P5 no longer considered this option. As a consequence of the reduced bargaining power, the negotiations shifted into legal realms and focused on how exactly the NPT outcome document should be integrated into the 2010 resolution (interviews UNmission#129, 29.11.11, UNmission#131, 30.11.11).
In January 2011, the resolution was passed and still entailed operative paragraph three, but its content has been changed considerably as the request to withdraw declarations has been replaced by a much softer formulation, according to which the states are encouraged to review any reservations. Thus, fully in line with the agreed language of the NPT outcome document, the 2010 UNGA resolution ‘encourages States that have ratified the relevant Protocols to the Treaty of Tlatelolco to review any reservations in this regard, in accordance with action 9 of the Final Document of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’. Once this formulation had been inserted, no state requested a vote, and the resolution was passed by consensus in the UNGA (interview UNmission#46, 08.03.11).
Sub-level Lock-in: The African Descent Case
In October 2009, Colombia tabled a resolution on people of African descent in the UNGA. The government in Bogotá faced domestic problems arising from the social, political and economic challenges of the African descendant parts of the Colombian population and drafted the resolution in order to show its willingness to address the situation of people with African roots (UNmission#143, 02.12.11). The draft resolution called for a United Nations decade for people of African descent and outlined actions that states, specialised UN agencies and NGOs should carry out in the next ten years. 23 While the European Union (EU) engaged actively in the negotiations from early on and successfully managed to reduce the commemoration period to only a year due to its factual and legal arguments in relation to cost implications, 24 the African group members became only active after experts from Geneva had arrived to support their respective national missions (interview UNmission#143, 02.12.11). The African group was not strongly united on the African descent resolution (interview UNmission#50, 09.03.11). South Africa and also Egypt and Benin, opposed the resolution because they regarded the issue of African descent as their topic, which Colombia had taken away (interviews UNmission#50, 09.03.11, UNmission#143, 02.12.11). They expressed their dissatisfaction and proposed a series of insertions that would have been unacceptable to the EU members and other Western states (interviews UNmission#50, 09.03.11, UNmission#55, 10.03.11, UNmission#58, 11.03.11, UNmission#124, 28.11.11). 25 The sponsors of the resolution were not responsive and the opposition of South Africa and some other African states continued to pose a problem (interview UNmission#58, 11.03.11, UNmission#143, 02.12.11). In the last stage of the negotiations, these states threatened to vote no (interview UNmission#50, 09.03.11). 26 In response, the proponents of the resolution applied the lock-in strategy vis-a-vis the opposing African states. The sponsors and some EU members acknowledged that improving the situation of people of African descent is important and that the issue is central to African countries (interviews UNmission#42, 08.03.11, UNmission#143, 02.12.11). On this basis, they stressed that an African country will not be able to publicly justify back home why it rejects a resolution that seeks to meliorate socio-economic, political and societal conditions of distant relatives abroad (interview UNmission#143, 02.12.11). Given the previous commitments to the African descent issue back home 27 as well as within the context of the African Union, no-votes in the UNGA would almost certainly have triggered reputational damages back home – especially since the large majority of the African group was in favour of the resolution (interviews UNmission#58, 11.03.11, UNmission#148, 06.12.11). The lock-in strategy was effective: Despite being formally in a strong position, the African countries were not successful as their bargaining threat with negative votes has lost its credibility. As a consequence, the African countries withdrew the threat to vote on the issue and reject the resolution (interview UNmission#143, 02.12.11). Accordingly, Colombia took none of the most important demands of the African opposition on board (e.g. concerning African diaspora, slavery or reparation) but made only a few symbolic concessions in the final text of the resolution (interview UNmission#58, 11.03.11). 28 Nevertheless, the African countries all supported the resolution in the end so that it was passed by consensus in the UNGA in December 2009 (interview UNmission#138, 01.12.11).
Lock-in Failure: The Myanmar Case
Myanmar became a democratic republic in 1948 after it had retained its independence form the UK. Yet, in 1962 a coup brought a military junta into power, which institutionalised a one-party system and pursued socialist reforms. 29 In 1988 when widespread demonstrations called for democracy and economic reforms another coup d’etat took place. 30 Although the State Law and Order Restoration Council announced democratic elections for 1990, the military government did not transfer power to the electoral winner, the National League for Democracy. Instead, the political opposition was suppressed and human rights were seriously violated (interview UNmission#137, 01.12.11). 31 In response to these developments, the member states of the European Union tabled a human rights resolution on Myanmar for the very first time in 1991 in the UNGA (interview UNmission#149, 06.12.11). The Myanmar resolution aimed to shed light on human rights abuses in Myanmar and, thereby, to contribute to the improvement of the situation on the ground. Since human rights violations continued, 32 the members of the European Union (EU) started to sponsor the resolution on an annual basis. While the text of the resolution has undergone some changes over time, its gist resolution was maintained 33 and only some of the language was altered and tended to be more critical to reflect the various events that took place in the country. 34
Up until 2005 the resolution was adopted by consensus in the UNGA. From 2006 onwards, however, the outcome changed since the resolution was voted upon. The sponsors of the resolutions failed to effectively use a lock-in strategy to secure the consensual support in 2006 and subsequent years.
In 2006 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) started to object to country-specific resolutions (interview UNmission#58, 11.03.11). States, such as India, Cuba Egypt, Iran, Belarus, Bangladesh, Syria, Sudan, and a series of others claimed that the UNGA had created the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2006 (which has its headquarters in Geneva), with a mandate to monitor and address human rights violations and make recommendations to promote the protection of human rights (interview UNmission#64, 14.03.11). In addition, they argued that the Myanmar resolution violates the principles of non-interference in internal affairs and national sovereignty (UNmission#10, 15.11.10, UNmission#35, 07.03.11). 35 On this basis, these countries demanded that the resolution should be withdrawn and threatened to vote against it. In the light of this no-vote threat, the sponsors of the resolution pointed out that the 2005 and earlier Myanmar resolutions had been consensual and reflected the UNGA member states’ commitment to human rights (interviews UNmission#39, 07.03.11, UNmission#137, 01.12.11, UNmission#149, 06.12.11). Irrespective of this linkage between the 2006 draft resolution and previous normative commitments, the EU actors failed to effectively lock the opponents in reiterating support for the Myanmar resolution. Although the resolution had been consensual prior to 2005, the EU members could not construct sufficiently high international reputational damages for not supporting the resolution in 2006 and also later on. This was due to the relatively high number of states opposing country-specific resolutions (in 2006, 28 states were explicitly against the resolution, while a further 63 did not support it and abstained in the vote), while the number of states that strongly supported the resolution in addition to the EU members was more limited and did not encompass many members of the international community. 36 Moreover, the opponents of the UNGA Myanmar resolution were able to frame their new foreign policy stance not as a violation of an international norm, but as a commitment to the UN’s human rights norms in general and the respective human rights regime as expressed in the newly created Human Rights Council in particular. 37 Thus, the lack of scope conditions for an effective lock-in strategy prevented the EU from singling out opponent countries and from effectively blaming them for deviating from previous commitments in not supporting human rights and for not condemning the human rights situation in Myanmar. Similarly, it was not possible to construct severe sub-level reputational damages, as the issue was framed as a EU versus NAM argument and the fact that the principle of non-interference was regarded as a strong, competing regional norm among the NAM states. 38 As a consequence, the bargaining power of the leading NAM countries remained constant and their threat with negative votes remained credible. In this context, the EU members engaged in lobbying strategies on bi- and multilateral level in New York as well as in various capitals around the world, 39 in which the EU disseminated the resolution and made a broad array of factual and legal arguments to obtain support for text-changes (interviews UNmission#35, 07.03.11, UNmission#58, 11.03.11). 40 This was effective and the group coherency in the NAM never became as high as allowing to block the resolution, so that the EU did not have to withdraw the Myanmar issue after 2005 (interviews UNmission#141, 01.12.11, UNmission#149, 06.12.11). Instead, the resolution has been passed via voting in the UNGA after 2005, although sometimes there was great uncertainty as to whether the supporters would be numerous enough until the very end of the negotiations (UNmission#149, 06.12.11).
Conclusions
International negotiations are often characterised by inter-state bargaining. This article illustrated that bargaining power is ultimately a social construction. Not only is the type of threats that can be employed in negotiations contingent upon the nature of the context, effective bargaining also depends on perceptions about the plausibility of the realisation of voiced threats. Lock-in strategies reduce the credibility of bargaining threats. Generally, lock-in strategies create linkages between the issue on the international negotiation agenda and other international or sub-level commitments or norms. On that basis, international-level bargaining threats of formerly powerful actors lose credibility as carrying them out would bring about severe reputation damages if specific scope conditions are met. International reputational damages are more severe and, consequently, more likely to render bargaining threats incredible, the lower the number of deviating states who can be singled out as violating an international norm or commitment through carrying out a bargaining threat. Similarly, sub-level reputational damages are higher and bargaining threats less credible, the greater the importance of the domestic or regional norms or commitments to which the international negotiation issue is positively linked and which would be violated through executing the bargaining threat on the international level. It is also increasingly likely that violations of pre-existing norms or commitments trigger losses in reputation, if the norms or commitments in question are not vague and if there are no strong competing, overlapping norms or commitments that can be used to justify infringements. If the scope conditions for the international or sub-national lock-in strategies are met, the bargaining leverage of the opposing actor is reduced as the state concerned cannot credibly threaten with actions against the issue on the international agenda anymore as this would cause too severe reputational losses either on the international level (Latin American NWFZ case) or on the sub-level (African descent case). If the scope conditions are not met, lock-in strategies are not effective, and the bargaining threats can, consequently, be carried out (Myanmar case).
So far research has illustrated that institutions or policy choices have path-dependency effects 41 and that rhetorical self-entrapment can take place in highly institutionalised settings with a high norm density and a collective identity, such as the European Union. 42 Building on these works, this article argued that lock-in effects can be used in negotiation strategies to reduce the bargaining leverage of seemingly strong states and that such lock-in strategies can be effective in IOs that are considerably less integrated, larger and with a considerably more heterogeneous membership than the EU. International-level lock-in strategies link an institutionalised international norm or commitment to the contested issue under negotiation, in order to create looming reputational damages and prevent states opposing the issue under negotiation from carrying out bargaining threats. In addition, lock-in strategies can even work for international negotiation items that cannot be linked to IO or international norms as such. As long as there are important domestic or regional norms or policy commitments that can be linked to the international issue at stake, violating the latter through exercising the bargaining threat would damage the reputation of the state on the sub-level (sub-level lock-in strategies). As a consequence, bargaining threats lose credibility and formerly powerful states lose strength.
Moreover, this article has shown that strategies related to legitimate and appropriate action are not only important to mobilise coalitions, polarise positions, and create new actors in contentious negotiations, 43 but also to counteract bargaining threats with means other than engaging in bargaining threats oneself. While large and powerful actors can recur to bargaining threats or promises themselves as well as to lock-in strategies in order to deconstruct bargaining threats of the opponent states, weaker states do not have the former options. Thus, international as well as regional or domestic lock-in strategies are especially important to them. Lock-in strategies even allow seemingly weaker actors to reduce the bargaining leverage of seemingly stronger states and thereby punch above their weights. The Latin American NWFZ case showed how less powerful Latin-American states prevailed over the US, Russia, France and the UK. Similarly, the African descent case illustrated how Colombia managed to negotiate successfully with considerably bigger actors, such as South Africa or the EU.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
There was no funding for this article.
1.
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Cf. John Elster, ‘Arguing and Bargaining in the Federal Convention and the Assemblée Constituanté’, in Rationality and Institutions. Essays in Honour of Knut Midgaard, eds Raino Malnes and Arild Underdal (Oslo: Univeritetsforlaget, 1992); Allen Layman and Charles Saxon, ‘The Legal Argument Game of Legal Relations’, Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law 5, no. 3 (1998); Diana Panke, ‘More Arguing than Bargaining? The Institutional Designs of the European Convention and Intergovernmental Conferences Compared’, Journal of European Integration 28, no. 4 (2006): 357–79; Thomas Risse, ‘“Let’s Argue!” Communicative Action in International Relations’, International Organization 54, no. 1 (2000): 1–39. Diana Panke, ‘Small States in EU Negotiations: Political Dwarfs or Power-Brokers?’ Cooperation and Conflict 40, no. 2 (2011): 123–43; Richard H. Steinberg, ‘In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO’, International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 339–74; Leonard J. Schoppa, ‘The Social Context in Coercive International Bargaining’, International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 307–42; James D. Fearon, ‘Bargaining, Enforcement and International Cooperation’, International Organization 52, no. 2 (1998): 269–305; Peter Drahos, ‘When the Weak Bargain with the Strong: Negotiations in the World Trade Organization’, International Negotiation 8, no. 1 (2003): 79–109; Habeeb, Power and Tactics in International Negotiation; Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, eds, Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). Nicole Deitelhoff, ‘The Discursive Process of Legalization: Charting Islands of Persuasion in the ICC Case’, International Organization 63, no. 1 (2009): 33–65.
3.
The notion that power is a social construction and as such linked to communicative processes is not new (e.g. Robert W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order [New York: Columbia University Press, 1987]; Michael Foucault, Power and Knowledge [New York: Pantheon Books, 1980]). For more recent work, see Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy Is What States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization 88, no. 2 (1992): 391–425; Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Nicole Deitelhoff, ‘The Discursive Process of Legalization: Charting Islands of Persuasion in the ICC Case’, International Organization 63, no. 1 (2009): 33–65; Jeffrey T. Checkel, ‘The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory’, World Politics 50, no. 2 (1998): 324–48.
4.
E.g. Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union’, International Organization 55, no. 1 (2001): 47–80; Loren Cass, ‘Norm Entrapment and Preference Change: The Evolution of the European Union Position on International Emissions Trading’, Global Environmental Politics 5, no. 2 (2005): 38–60.
5.
E.g. Paul W. Meerts, ‘Entrapment in International Negotiations’, in Escalation and Negotiation in International Conflicts, eds I. William Zartman and Guy Oliver Faure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Thomas Risse, ‘International Norms and Domestic Change: Arguing and Communicative Behavior in the Human Rights Area’, Politics and Society 27, no. 4 (1999): 529–59; Jean-Frédéric Morin and E. Richard Gold, ‘Consensus-seeking, Distrust and Rhetorical Entrapment: The WTO Decision on Access to Medicines’, European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 4 (2010): 563–87.
6.
Stacie E. Goddard, ‘Uncommon Ground: Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy’, International Organization 60, no. 1 (2006): 35–68.
7.
Lock-in strategies are not per se a weak state strategy, but can also be used by powerful actors themselves. However, compared to weak states, powerful ones can also resort to engaging in issuing counter-threats or promises themselves in order to prevent the opponent from carrying out a bargaining threat.
8.
Harald Müller, ‘Arguing, Bargaining and All That: Reflections on the Relationship of Communicative Action and Rationalist Theory in Analysing International Negotiations’, European Journal of International Relations 10, no. 3 (2004): 395–435; Ole Elgström and Christer Jönsson, ‘Negotiations in the EU: Bargaining or Problem-Solving?’, Journal of European Public Policy 7, no. 5 (2000): 684–704; Christian Joerges and Jürgen Neyer, ‘Transforming Strategic Interaction into Deliberative Problem-Solving. European Comitology in the Food Stuff Sector’, Journal of European Public Policy 4, no. 4 (1997): 609–25.
9.
Power is context-dependent; for example, the potential for threats among states can be specified by institutional rules (e.g. voting power in an IO), policy sectors (e.g. economic power in trade negotiations) or conventions (e.g. military power in case of looming wars) (Robert O. Keohane and Jospeh S. Nye, Jr, Power and Interdependence [Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977]; Dennis H. Wrong, Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988]; Zartman and Rubin, Power and Negotiation).
10.
James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, ‘The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life’, American Political Science Review, no. 78 (1984): 734–49; Thomas M. Franck, The Power of Legitimacy among Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
11.
Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap’, Risse, ‘International Norms and Domestic Change: Arguing and Communicative Behavior in the Human Rights Area’, Morin and Gold, ‘Consensus-seeking, Distrust and Rhetorical Entrapment’.
12.
Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap’, 48.
13.
Ibid.
14.
While the term ‘lock-in’ is frequently used, it often refers to how institutions or policy choices create path dependencies (Paul Pierson, ‘Path Dependence and the Study of Politics’, paper presented at the American Political Science Association, Annual Meetings, San Francisco, CA, 1996; Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’, International Organization 54, no. 3 [2000]; Andrew Moravcsik, ‘The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe’, International Organization 54, no. 2 [2000]. L. A. Patterson, ‘Agricultural Policy Reform in the European Community: A Three-level Game Analysis’, International Organization 51, no. 1 [1997]. Andrew Moravcsik, ‘A New Statecraft? Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation’, International Organization 53, no. 2 [1999]). It has not been studied as a negotiation strategy, which decreases the bargaining power of seemingly strong actors in constructing a situation in which they would face reputation damages in case they would carry out their issued threats.
15.
For shaming cf. Ray Pawson, ‘Evidence and Policy and Naming and Shaming’, Policy Studies 23, no. 3 (2002): 211–30; Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap’.
16.
The less precise the norm or commitment, and the more competing, overlapping norms exist, the lower are the expected losses in reputation in case the targeted actor fails to respond to a lock-in strategy (Diana Panke and Ulrich Petersohn, ‘Why International Norms Disappear Sometimes’, European Journal of International Relations 18, no. 4 [2011]). Thus, in instances in which competing and overlapping norms or commitments exist, a state targeted with a lock-in strategy can engage in a counterstrategy to avoid reputational losses in claiming that it does not so much violate the norm or commitment to which the lock-in strategy relates, but rather complies with a different set of norms or commitments.
17.
John R. Redick, ‘Regional Nuclear Arms Control in Latin America’, International Organization 29, no. 2 (1975): 415–45.
18.
These negative assurances encompass the commitment of the P5 to respect the denuclearised status of the zone, not contribute to acts involving violation of obligations of the parties and, most importantly, that they will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the members of the Latin American Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (Joseph S. Nye, ‘New Approaches to Nuclear Proliferation Policy’, Science 256, no. 5061 [1992]: 1293–7).
19.
The US and the UK stated that they would reconsider the extent to which the protocol would lead them to commitments concerning their actions, ‘in the event of any act of aggression by a Contracting Party to the Treaty in which that Party was supported by a nuclear-weapon State’ (cited in International Court of Justice, ‘Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion’ [The Hague: International Court of Justice, 1996], 249–50). The Soviet Union had a similar interpretative statement, as it would review its obligations vis-a-vis the Latin American parties of the Treaty of Tlatelolco in the event of an attack ‘in support of a nuclear-weapon State or jointly with that State’ (cited in ibid., 249–50). In its declaratory statement, France stated that it ‘interprets the undertaking made in article 3 of the Protocol as being without prejudice to the full exercise of the right of self-defense confirmed by Article 51 of the Charter’ (cited in ibid., 249–50). Cf. John R. Redick, ‘The Tlatelolco Regime and Nonproliferation in Latin America The Tlatelolco Regime and Nonproliferation in Latin America’, International Organization 35, no. 1 (1981): 103–34; David R. Robinson, ‘The Treaty of Tlatelolco and the United States: A Latin American Nuclear Free Zone’, The American Journal of International Law 6, no. 4 (1970): 282–309.
20.
It stated ‘Calls upon the nuclear-weapon States that formulated unilateral interpretative declarations at the moment of signature or ratification of the relevant Protocols to the Treaty of Tlatelolco to withdraw those declarations that affect the denuclearised status established by the Treaty’.
21.
‘Action 9: The establishment of further nuclear-weapon-free zones, where appropriate, on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at among States of the region concerned, and in accordance with the 1999 Guidelines of the United Nations Disarmament Commission, is encouraged. All concerned States are encouraged to ratify the nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties and their relevant protocols, and to constructively consult and cooperate to bring about the entry into force of the relevant legally binding protocols of all such nuclear-weapon free zones treaties, which include negative security assurances. The concerned States are encouraged to review any related reservations.’ (
, emphasis added by the author).
22.
‘We put the P5 in a very uncomfortable position, because then, through the process of negotiation, we drafted a new language that pretty much copied the action plan of the NPT Review Conference. We tried to follow it as much as possible word by word so that we couldn’t be attacked from the respect that, no you’re modifying what we agreed. And that is when they reached this very difficult position of ‘I don’t have a substantive argument to say no, because I’ve agreed to this, but it’s just the fact that it makes me very, very uncomfortable to have it included as well in a General Assembly Resolution.; And at the end of the day they did accept it, because again it was not something they could say no to. So it was very uncomfortable for them, they pressured us until the very last day with the threat of a possible vote if the paragraph was retained, just to see with that strategy if we would remove the paragraph. We never did’ (interview UNmission#131, 30.11.11).
23.
The resolution criticised the discrimination and marginalisation of people of African descent and demanded measures to combat these problems. Thus, the resolution asked for a series of domestic and international activities to promote the rights, participation and integration of people of African descent as well as to increase the knowledge of and respect for their heritages and cultures.
24.
Some of the EU members perceived themselves as being in a normative trap; ‘we didn’t want it [the Colombian resolution on African descent] and at the same time we can’t say “we don’t want it, we vote against it”’, not the least because of the human rights adherence of the EU member states in other contexts (interview UNmission#55, 10.03.11). As a result, of this normative entrapment, Columbia was not deterred by the EU’s initial threat with negative votes, and the EU quickly stopped to reinforce their demand for the withdrawal of the resolution with no-votes, and shifted into a more cooperative negotiation style to develop a consensual resolution (interview UNmission#143, 02.12.11).
25.
This included insertions on historical responsibilities of Western countries vis-a-vis African people, insertions that referred to Durban, African Diaspora, a reference to a conference of the African Union on a related matter, as well as instruments and mechanisms, including an expert group and a conference on justice and development issues for people of African Descent (interviews UNmission#55, 10.03.11, UNmission#58, 11.03.11, UNmission#124, 28.11.11).
26.
A diplomat reported that the African countries ‘felt confident that there was no way that Columbia would want to proceed with something knowing that the Africa group didn’t support them and that that would be ridiculous for them. So they at least had that confidence if they threatened that kind of action, that they would be taken seriously and that things would be done to accommodate them’ (interview UNmission#143, 02.12.11).
27.
The African descent populations in South and North American, Europe and the Caribbean have often been in the focus of domestic debates, linking their situation and problems to colonialism, slavery and racism. Thus, several newspaper articles in South Africa focused on African descent issues before and after the Columbian resolution (Times, ‘Still Trapped in a Web of Colonisation’ [Johannesburg: http://www.timeslive.co.za/search.do, 2009]; Citypress, ‘The Continued Imprisonment of Black People in the US Can Be Traced to the Time of Slavery’ [South Africa: http://www.citypress.co.za/Columnists/The-continued-imprisonment-of-black-people-in-the-US-can-be-traced-to-the-time-of-slavery-20100614, 2005]; Citypress, ‘Celebrating a History of Struggle’ [South Africa: http://www.citypress.co.za/MyCityPress/Letters/Celebrating-a-history-of-struggle-20100614, 2003]; Independent Online, ‘ “We are Forgotten People”’ [South Africa: http://www.iol.co.za/search-results-page?action=search&submitted=true&freeTextQuery=%22African+descent%22&author=&fromDate=01%2F01%2F2009&toDate=31%2F12%2F2009&channel=category.news&search.x=40&search.y=19, 2009]; Citypress, ‘Solidarity: Key to Pan-Africanism’ [South Africa: http://www.citypress.co.za/Xarchive/Leaders/Solidarity-key-to-Pan-Africanism-20100614, 2004]; Independent Online, ‘Obama Election Good News for Africa’ [South Africa: , 2008]). In addition, numerous newspaper articles in a wide range of African countries covered the 2008 US election and emphasised strongly Barak Obama’s African descent.
28.
Such as the mentioning of the Durban programme of action in a declaratory paragraph (‘Recalling also the relevant provisions of the outcomes of all major United Nations conferences and summits, in particular the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action 8 and the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action’) and the mentioning of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (‘Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session a report containing a draft programme of activities for the Year, taking into account the views and recommendations of Member States, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent of the Human Rights Council and other relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, as appropriate’).
29.
Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, ‘Preconditions and Prospects for Democratic Transition in Burma/Myanmar’, Asian Survey 43, no. 3 (2003): 443–60.
30.
Helen James, ‘Myanmar in 2005: In a Holding Pattern’, Asian Survey 46, no. 1 (2006): 162–7.
31.
Joshua Kurlantzick, ‘Can Burma Reform?’, Foreign Affairs 81, no. 6 (2002); Ian Holliday, ‘Rethinking the United States’s Myanmar Policy’, Asian Survey 45, no. 4 (2005): 603–21.
32.
Despite these activities of the governing military junta, the deterioration of economic conditions in 2007 triggered widespread demonstrations, which were stopped by the military government through the use of force. Nevertheless, the latter introduced changes in the constitution of Myanmar and promised democratic reforms and free elections in 2008. The elections took place in 2010. However, opposition members pointed out several instances of electoral fraud, casting doubt on whether the elections were indeed free and fair, not the least because the winning party (the Union Solidarity and Development Party) had been backed by the military (interview UNmission#137, 01.12.11). Nevertheless, the new government committed itself to democratic reforms and the respect of human and political rights. The rhetoric was followed by concrete actions, such as the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the release of other political prisoners, and reforms towards improvements in regard to human rights in the course of 2011.
33.
E.g. the declaratory part of the resolution stated that the UNGA is ‘deeply concerned that the urgent calls contained in the above-mentioned resolutions, as well as the statements of other United Nations bodies concerning the situation of human rights in Myanmar, have not been met, and emphasising that, without significant progress towards meeting these calls of the international community, the situation of human rights in Myanmar will continue to deteriorate’.
34.
In 1991, the resolution was very short and entailed only four operative paragraphs. Over the years, the resolution was appended and has reached 31 operative paragraphs in GA 64 and GA 65 because the number of incidents of human rights violations that were criticised or even condemned increased over time. Consequently, the EU members included an increasing number of operative paragraphs that requested the Myanmar government to actively change the situation on the ground (depending on the strength of the language this was expressed through ‘encouraging’, ‘appealing’, ‘requesting’, ‘calling upon’, ‘urging’ or ‘strongly urging’). While the initial version of the resolution entailed just one operative paragraph that ‘urged’ the government to improve the human rights situation, the number of these and similar operative paragraphs increased up to a total of 21.
35.
The resolution is ‘perceived as some kind of tool to interfere in internal affairs’ (interview UNmission#92, 01.04.11). Thus, opposing countries stressed singling out individual countries is unfair and does not help the countries concerned to improve their domestic problems (interview UNmission#58, 11.03.11).
36.
Only Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Moldova, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States of America joined the EU members in co-sponsoring the resolution, which expressed their strong support for the text.
37.
To this end, they pointed out that country-specific human rights issues should not be negotiated not in the UNGA at all, but only in the HRC as the latter was explicitly created to this end (interview UNmission#64, 14.03.11).
38.
The opponents of the resolutions were mainly NAM members and adhered to the NAM principle of the non-interference into domestic affairs. For example, India’s newspapers were – with few exceptions – not reporting critically about the human rights situation and violations in Myanmar and did not argue in favour of interfering into domestic affairs (e.g. The Indian Express, ‘UN Envoy has Brief Meeting with Suu Kyi’ [India: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/un-envoy-has-brief-meeting-with-suu-kyi-/16470 2006]; The Indian Express, ‘India, Myanmar Join Hands on Border Terror’ [India: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-myanmar-join-hands-on-border-terror/12873, 2006]; The Indian Express, ‘Power Passes to Next Generation of Myanmar Generals in Major Reshuffle’ [India: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/power-passes-to-next-generation-of-myanmar-generals-in-major-reshuffle-/7749, 2006]; Asia Times Online, ‘Beyond Munich: Geostrategy and Betrayal’ [India: www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ID28Ad05.html, 2007];, The Indian Express, ‘Myanmar Assures India of Action Against Militants’ [India: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/myanmar-assures-india-of-action-against-militants/19097, 2006]; for rare exceptions cf. The Indian Express, ‘Repression in Myanmar’ [India: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/repression-in-myanmar/222671, 2007]; Asian Tribune, ‘Will ASEAN Change its Myanmar Tune?’ [http://www.asiantribune.com/node/1302 2006]). Thus, domestic reputational losses for not supporting the EU’s resolution anymore were limited. In addition, the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs is deeply engrained in the NAM as well (Asia Times Online, ‘Aligned for the Cause’ [India: , 2006]), so that shifting from yes to no-votes or to abstentions in regard to the Myanmar resolution in the UNGA did not at all create reputational damages within the NAM.
39.
E.g. ‘The lobbying we normally do within the EU is that we establish a taskforce normally one country takes a lead in that organises the meetings, and pulls up the tables of previous years and then we will divide the work. Okay you take care of that country I take of that country and then you do lobbying of both at Capital levels and here and … ask them to vote with us. Then you look at their pattern of voting. If you have someone, if you have a country that has abstained we will ask them to vote with, if they have voted no, you ask them maybe to vote to abstain’ (interview UNmission#35, 07.03.11).
40.
In addition, the EU members also made symbolic text changes in order to increase the support for the resolution (interview UNmission#92, 01.04.11). For example, since 2008 the resolution entails an operative paragraph, which explicitly praises the role of ASEAN and neighbours of Myanmar in supporting the UN Secretary General’s activities in regard to Myanmar, which are requested by the resolution itself. This strategy worked since ‘the ASEAN partners weren’t really whole heartedly defending the human rights record of Myanmar to be frank … Their chairman at the time would speak but wouldn’t interject and didn’t seem to me anyway that there was a whole lot of fire in their belly, marching to the defense of the human rights record of Myanmar. I don’t think even they pretended it was a record they wanted to defend’ (interview UNmission#105, 19.07.11). Thus, only half of the ASEAN members (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) voted with Myanmar, while the others abstained (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand).
41.
Paul Pierson, ‘The Path to European Integration: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis’, Comparative Political Studies 29, no. 2 (1996): 123–63.
42.
Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap’.
43.
Goddard, ‘Uncommon Ground’.