Agreement and Breakdown in Negotiation: Report on a State Department Training Simulation

For the past six years the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State has used a simulation to train officers in negotiation techniques. This simulation models a negotiation between two fictitious countries over six issues, and the scenario realistically incorporates bureaucratic politics by building in internal disagreement on the issues. The simulation has been conducted 41 times, of which 24 exercises (59 %) have concluded in general agreement. This research examines the reasons for agreement and breakdown in this simulation, and draws analogies to real-world practices.The findings suggest that the process of negotiation is important in its own right in predis posing negotiators to accept a settlement, particularly where uncertainty or controversy exists over negotiating objectives. Elements in the negotiation process that tend to facilitate agreement are: (1) the establishment of trade-offs, priorities, and structure in the material being negotiated, which is difficult to accomplish when negotiators represent governments that are internally divided; (2) the achievement of efficiency in the bargaining interaction, especially in the early agenda setting phase of a negotiation; and (3) the movement from a negotiating mentality to a decision-making mentality, which requires negotiators to reorient their perspectives on the negotiation, and especially, to maintain effective communication between negotiating teams and their home governments. Breakdowns in the simulation are largely attributable to the failure of negotiators to set priorities and to define a quid pro quo relationship, with the result that the negotiating teams fail to establish leadership or managerial control of the process.The entire simulation is reproduced in the Appendix. It is suitable for practical training, as well as for conducting further research on negotiation.