13 - Crisis bargaining

Summary

The case studies confirm the importance of bargaining as a form of crisis interaction, but its centrality has been treated as hypothesis, not assumption. The main questions addressed in the case studies were the extent to which the parties followed coherent bargaining strategies and the overall significance of bargaining in each of the cases, and the findings point to limitations of a bargaining analysis. The aims of this chapter are (1) to suggest ways in which it may be necessary to qualify the hypothesis that bargaining is the primary form of interaction in crises, and (2) to explore what this implies for the explanation of crisis outcomes. Further, although the case studies do not suggest that the hostility spiral could replace bargaining as a general theory of crisis interaction, the chapter will inquire to what extent it may supplement a bargaining analysis. First, however, it is necessary to explain further the way in which the terms ‘bargaining’ and ‘bargaining strategy’ are used in the present work.

Bargaining is seldom defined explicitly in the international relations literature, but the concept employed in the present study – attempting to influence the decisions of others through strategies of coercion and accommodation – is consistent with the usage of the term by Thomas Schelling and by Snyder and Diesing.