Negotiation, Meet New Governance: Interests, Skills, and Selves

Abstract

In this article, I critically examine two bodies of scholarship: negotiation literature and new governance literature. To that end, I consider The Negotiator's Fieldbook (2006), an ambitious survey of negotiation theory and practice edited by Andrea Kupfer Schneider and Christopher Honeyman, and key works by U.S. new governance architects, Michael Dorf, Charles Sabel, and William Simon. This comparison may surprise readers since negotiation literature largely focuses on interpersonal dynamics, and new governance literature aims at institutional change. I argue that these two literatures share similar assumptions about subjectivity that drive their sense of political hopefulness. In short, both envision a flexible problem‐solving subject—shaped in negotiation by a discourse of skills and in new governance by a discourse of institutional design. Based on this descriptive claim, I illustrate how reading these literatures together suggests alternative perspectives from which to consider questions of power, inequality, and distribution relevant to both fields. When no firm and lasting ties any longer unite men, it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every man whose help is required that he serves his private interests by voluntarily uniting his efforts to those of all the others. Alexis de Tocqueville (1969, 517)

Experimental Justice Reform: Lessons from the World Bank and Beyond

“…They shift emphasis from the uniqueness of law or the particularity of law as a social institution, turning instead to the ins and outs of expertise (Kennedy 2006, Santos 2006, policy making, and programming (Armytage 2012, Carothers 2006, Desai & Woolcock 2015, Desai et al 2012. At a new governance-inflected extreme (identified by Cohen 2008), this inward turn to practice might manifest itself in narratives and analysis of bureaucratic form and operation, with little to say of the substantive politics of reform. …”

Clarifying Collaborative Dynamics in Governance Networks

“…Honing in on these particular elements helps to clarify what is happening in these dimensions and how to assess them. We argue that this is important because, as Cohen (2008) notes in regard to the administrative practice of negotiation, new governance theory augments the literature by placing its "problem-solving techniques into a macro political context," while the negotiation literature provides new governance theorists with "a theory and a set of prescriptions for dealing with micro interactions that they currently lack" (514). As noted in the introduction, we have bypassed the contemporary negotiation literature, much of which is hybridized with hierarchical and competitive concepts, and go back to Follett as a principal source.…”

Negotiating Workplace Equality: A Systemic Approach

“…Negotiations and conflict resolution proceed at the individual level without connecting to more general patterns structuring outcomes. Institutional change initiatives undertake to identify systemic or institutional problems without connecting to individual decision making (Cohen, 2008). What is needed is a mechanism for generating negotiations about the negotiation context, as well as occasions for decision makers to reflect about the patterns revealed within those routine negotiations, to identify problems that are undermining the quality and inclusiveness, and to address them.…”

“…Much of the literature on gender, race, and negotiation focuses on the individual interaction—the dynamics, perceptions, judgments, and actions contributing to gender or racial disparities (Cohen, 2008). Differences in information, skills, and access to opportunity networks combine with stereotypes about women and people of color to reproduce inequality.…”