The strategic use of normative arguments in international negotiations
| Author | Gadi Heimann,Lior Herman |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819894631 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819894631
International Relations
2021, Vol. 35(1) 47 –68
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117819894631
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The strategic use of
normative arguments in
international negotiations
Gadi Heimann and Lior Herman
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Abstract
This article claims that normative arguments play a greater role in negotiations than existing
scholarship implies. While the approaches of communicative and rhetorical action limit the use of
arguments to environments that meet certain conditions, in fact normative arguments are widely
used and can be found in almost every example of negotiations. This article seeks to explain this
phenomenon. Negotiating parties that feel obligated to tackle normative arguments raised by the
opposing side – either because of the presence of an audience or to maintain its reputation – have
a number of tools at their disposal. Negotiators who are unsuccessful in tackling these arguments
will tend to offer a proposal that is more attractive to the other side. Although normative
arguments do not generally have a sweeping influence on the outcome of negotiations, they are
still likely to play a significant role. The article applies this theoretical framework to the case of the
lengthy negotiations between the EEC and Israel, in which the former had no material motivation
and desire to cede to Israel’s demands and nevertheless did so.
Keywords
communicative action, European community, Israel, normative arguments, rhetorical action,
trade negotiations
Normative arguments are frequently employed in negotiations to convince the opposing
side and target audience that a certain action or its result is either moral or immoral. This
article seeks to answer three interconnected questions relating to normative arguments
that, as yet, have not been tackled by academic literature on international negotiations.1
Corresponding authors:
Gadi Heimann, Department of International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus,
Jerusalem 91950, Israel.
Email: gadi.heimann@mail.huji.ac.il
Lior Herman, Department of International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus,
Jerusalem 91950, Israel.
Email: lior.herman@mail.huji.ac.il
894631IRE0010.1177/0047117819894631International RelationsHeimann and Herman
research-article2020
Article
48 International Relations 35(1)
The first asks why, in almost all negotiations, parties use normative arguments, even when
the two parties, each seeking to maximize its own interests, are engaged in intransigent
bargaining. Modern scholarship – on both communicative action and rhetorical action –
emphasizes the importance of these arguments, focusing on certain settings in which the
negotiators are part of a community that shares values and norms and those in which the
negotiations assume an integrative form. However, the use of normative arguments is not
restricted to these cases.2 Negotiations often occur in environments that do not provide the
conditions necessary for communicative or rhetorical action: for example, negotiations
between representatives of different cultures that share only a very superficial normative
basis or lack a solid institutional setting. Likewise, negotiations often concern topics
tinged with conflict, indicating to the parties that they are involved in bargaining – for
example, the allocation of resources such as territory or trade negotiations. Nevertheless,
in all these negotiations, normative arguments are employed.
The second question concerns why actors engaged in closed discussions with only mini-
mal exposure to an external audience employ normative arguments. All theories of rhetorical
action ascribe a key role to the audience – to which arguments are ostensibly directed3 –
which may consist of impartial mediators, the general public (at home or abroad), or
the international community. This audience acts as judge and jury, deciding which of the
versions presented by the two sides is more persuasive. It also constitutes an essential
component in the model of rhetorical action: without the audience, the parties ‘can argue
strategically until they are all blue in the face’.4 However, many negotiations are conducted
without an audience, because the talks are secret or because they are not interesting to the
public (e.g. those concerning technical issues). Nevertheless, in these cases too, parties
commonly utilize normative arguments, thus raising the question of why this is the case.
Third, and finally, this article asks why despite their frequent use, normative argu-
ments do not always lead to the adoption of the solution they fully advocate. Models of
both communicative and rhetorical action focus on cases in which the normative discus-
sion reaches a decision that responds fully to the normative argument as a result of per-
suasion (communicative action) or cohesion (rhetorical action). These models do not
relate to the many other cases in which the parties reach a compromise and the normative
argument seemingly carried no real weight in the negotiation results.
This article suggests, first, that normative arguments play a range of roles: concealing
self-interest and thus ensuring the smooth continuation of negotiations; allowing the par-
ties to generate an obligation to the solution reached; and improving a negotiator’s bar-
gaining power so they can succeed in persuading others of their claims’ validity. Second,
parties tend to respond to the winning results not only because of external pressure, but
also because they feel duty-bound to the dictates of a normative argument. Third, victory
by moral argument does not usually lead to the other side’s complete surrender but rather
to a readiness to meet somewhere in the middle. Often the winning side, recognizing the
limits of its argument, will agree to this.
The first section of this article provides a survey of existing literature on normative
argumentation and its shared assumptions. The second section suggests a new model
for the instrumental use of normative arguments within the framework of negotia-
tions. Following this, the third section examines the case of the (over-a-) decade-long
trade negotiations between Israel and the European Economic Community (EEC). It
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