Relative BATNAs and the duration of international negotiations: The case of trade

The length of international negotiations varies widely. One important factor that influences negotiations’ duration has to do with the parties’ “best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).” The concept of the BATNA refers to the costs associated with not reaching an agreement that a state faces, and is widespread in the study of negotiations. Looking at the relational nature of negotiating states’ BATNAs, I argue that when one party faces a significantly more costly outcome if an agreement is not reached than their negotiating opponent – i.e., their BATNAs are more asymmetric – the negotiation is likely to be shorter. I test this argument examining the duration of trade negotiations between the European Union and a wide variety of negotiating partners. Using a Cox proportional hazards analysis allowing for time-varying covariates as well as time-varying coefficients, I show that the risk that a negotiation will end in a trade agreement is greater when the EU and its negotiating partner have more asymmetric BATNAs. In other words, those negotiations tend to be shorter.