Module 4 through 7 has an associated group discussion that should focus on discussing the course content for that Module. Each discussion will span the two-weeks of the Module. Eac

50

3. Negotiation within collaborative networks Elise Boruvka and Lisa Blomgren Amsler

INTRODUCTION

Collaborative governance requires that actors enter into collaborative relationships and exer- cise conflict management skills to solve societal problems. Within collaborative governance, networks form from multiple actors with shared and differing interests. These actors work together to achieve goals no single actor can achieve. A single actor may be a principal, an agent, or both simultaneously. An agent acts as a representative of a principal. Networks consist of a complex web of interactions between principals and agents. The performance of the network depends on network actors’ abilities to successfully negotiate disputes (O’Leary & Bingham, 2007).1 For network conflict management, interest-based negotiation is more effective than distributive or competitive bargaining, because it builds on open communication of interests rather than locking members into positions which may render negotiation ineffec- tive (Kenis & Provan, 2009). In a network, parties share interests in continued relations and resolving disputes quickly and effectively.

In addition to negotiating internal conflict, networks should consider the public’s role in decision-making. For networks with government members, public participation may be necessary and could take the form of dialogue or deliberation. Network actors engage the public most often during upstream legislative and quasi-legislative processes (Bingham, 2011; Amsler, 2016). Depending on the network’s purpose and members, public involvement may not be a necessary or even possible step.

The following sections describe the environment and potential for conflict, different nego- tiation strategies, alignment between interest-based negotiation and networks, the role of prin- cipals and agents, and the process for establishing governance mechanisms within a network.

NETWORKS FOR COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE

Governance is a complex process involving multiple actors across sectors seeking compre- hensively to manage or resolve multifaceted issues. Governance takes place across the policy continuum, from legislative to judicial processes (Amsler, 2016). To address issues in society and provide services for the public, governments may need to collaborate with individuals, organizations in the public, private, and/or nonprofit sectors, and other stakeholders to have the resources, relationships, and ideas necessary (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003). These actors (individuals or organizations) combine to collaborate and form a network.

Scholars have defined a network as:

1 Many of the ideas in this chapter were first developed in O’Leary and Bingham (2007). The authors cite it generally and recommend readers use it as a practice guide for how to manage conflict in networks.

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Negotiation within collaborative networks 51

(1) “structures of interdependence” moving beyond hierarchical structures (O’Toole, 1997, p. 45);

(2) “structures involving multiple nodes – agencies and organizations – with multiple link- ages” (McGuire, 2003, p. 4);

(3) “formal and informal structures, composed of representatives from governmental and nongovernmental agencies working interdependently” (Agranoff, 2004, p. 63; Milward & Provan, 2006) with concerted action and joint production (Alter & Hage, 1993); and,

(4) a “series of interactions occur[ring] around policy and other issues” (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2000, p. 139).

The multi-actor, non-hierarchical, collaborative nature of networks allows for members jointly to solve problems facing the public, providing services and activities on a scale larger than any single entity, and benefits like shared resources and political interests, or other integrative factors (Fleischman, 2009; Gray & Purdy, 2018).

Networks tend to form in policy arenas entailing complex or ambiguous issues (Waugh, 2004; Agranoff & McGuire, 2004), such as the environment (see O’Leary & Bingham, 2003; Robins, Bates, & Pattison, 2011), disaster management (see Kapucu, Arslan, & Demiroz, 2010; Koliba, Mills, & Zia, 2011), sustainability (see MacDonald, Clarke, & Huang, 2019), defense, health (see Provan & Milward, 1995), education (see Ball, 2009), legal, and social services (see Edelman, Leachman, & McAdam, 2010). They address problems that span sector or jurisdictional boundaries with impacts on the public, like how to reduce carbon emissions. To make cities more sustainable, managers must work together and are accountable both within-network and to the public.

Milward and Provan (2006) identify five essential tasks network managers must address: the management of accountability, legitimacy, conflict, design, and commitment. At the outset, network actors must negotiate the governance structure. Networks use multiple decision-making forums, are both interorganizational and interpersonal, and can use a variety of governance structures, decision-making protocols, and rules. As network actors negotiate the governance structure and plan network actions, conflict may arise.

Conflict among Actors of a Network

Connelly, Zhang and Faerman (2014) describe how a web of paradoxes generates network con- flict. Network managers working autonomously and interdependently must handle common and diverse goals; operate in both small and larger, diverse groups; and exhibit participative and authoritative characteristics. They envision details while also maintaining perspective of a larger picture; they balance advocacy and inquiry. Task and relationship conflict arise within and among groups (Medina, Munduate, Dorado, Martínez, & Guerra, 2005). Task conflict includes issues relating to the distribution of resources, interpretation of facts, procedures, and policies (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Relationship conflict includes political preferences, values, culture, and interpersonal style. Relationship conflict negatively correlates with group effectiveness and satisfaction; both relationship and task conflict mean group performance will likely decline.

O’Leary and Bingham (2007) apply Carpenter and Kennedy’s (2001, 1988) spiral of unmanaged conflict to networks. It follows eight stages: (1) problem emerges, (2) players form sides, (3) positions harden, (4) communication halts, (5) disputants commit resources, (6) the

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52 Handbook of collaborative public management

conflict goes outside the community, (7) conflict distorts perceptions, and (8) disputants sense crisis. Conflict raises questions of network effectiveness and performance (Lewis, 2010). Skillful managers must handle emerging disputes and prevent a full crisis. Time-sensitive issues of a public, political, or grave nature can strain within-network relations, putting man- agers under pressure to act under more scrutiny.

Conflict is more likely to arise when dealing with “hot-button issues,” when there is a large membership, and when there is a long history of conflict (Lubell, Mewhirter, & Berardo, 2020). Within public administration research, the idea of polycentricity has been present since the 1960s (Ostrom, Tiebout, & Warren, 1961). More recently, particularly when studying networks, scholars have begun to study conflict that arises when actors must work together to make decisions dependently, forming a system of policy forums (Lubell, Mewhirter, & Berardo, 2020). Elinor Ostrom (2010) discusses the concept of action arenas or action situa- tions in which networks form. These action situations are where decision-making processes and negotiations take place. Within an action situation, interactions take place to impact outcomes as well as resource systems, resource units, governance systems, and users. Ostrom (2010) identifies contextual variables related to the social-ecological system impact the action situation. When working within or studying an action arena, the role of conflict and how actors negotiate such conflicts shape the outcomes of the network and the surrounding systems, units, and users. Conflict becomes a function of individual, forum, and system-level variables (Lubell, Mewhirter, & Berardo, 2020).

When studying conflict within networks, the unit of analysis becomes important. Is the unit of analysis the agency or organizational member (i.e., the principal)? Or, is the unit of analysis the individual human representative that the organization sends as its agent to the network meetings?

Conflict with the Public

Just as it does within collaborative public management (Agranoff, 2006), conflict has the potential to arise between the public and the networks. Public-facing networks have respon- sibilities like public organizations, including transparency, public engagement, and account- ability. Public engagement can enhance public perceptions of effectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice (Fung, 2015). Collaborative public management can include participatory gov- ernance, which actively involves citizens in government decision-making (O’Leary, Gerard, & Bingham, 2006). Network managers must determine how and when to engage the public, ensuring relevance and effective design that encourages citizen deliberation, dialogue, and shared decision-making. Failure to do so may engender disputes.

During the Cleveland Air Toxics Pilot, the Environmental Protection Agency funded an initiative to reduce air toxins in a neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. The stakeholders involved in the project included government agencies, environmental groups, neighborhood associ- ations, citizen representatives and representatives of mobile, stationary, and indoor sources (Cleveland Air Toxics Project, 2002). Initially, participants played a passive role. It was not until participants reframed their role in the pilot project that they saw themselves as actors with responsibilities and the abilities to change the air pollution in their city (Shmueli, Elliott, & Kaufman, 2006). Once participants felt they had the power to act, they became active partici- pants in the project’s network.

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Negotiation within collaborative networks 53

Although networks are not legal entities (Provan & Kenis, 2008), when addressing public issues, they must consider the role of the public. Examples in which networks involve citizens in decision-making include citizen juries, face-to-face dialogue, large-scale meetings, and deliberative polling. Carson and Hartz-Karp (2005) identify three criteria for determining the quality of such processes – influence, deliberativeness, and inclusiveness. Another key component is whether public participation is appropriate. Scholars most often see participation taking place upstream and midstream in the policy process, when participants are making and implementing policies (Amsler, 2016). In participatory budgeting, citizens participate in collective decisions while also improving short-term service delivery (Russon Gilman, 2012). However, public participation is not suitable for all network actions. While suitable in advance planning for a hurricane, it may not be appropriate during emergency response when the hur- ricane makes landfall. Network managers must decide which public participation approaches are best given the timing, influence, and network goals and priorities.

Negotiation in Collaborative Governance Frameworks

Negotiation is a central piece in common collaborative governance frameworks or any collaborative arrangement. Emerson, Nabatchi, and Balogh (2012) introduce an integrative framework for collaborative governance that incorporates interactive collaboration dynam- ics that include principled engagement, shared motivation, and capacity for joint action. These collaboration dynamics rest within the collaborative governance regime in which actors, decision-making processes, and feedback loops exist between actions and dynamics. Negotiation resides between the actors in a collaborative governance regime as the actors negotiate their governing practices and handle collaboration dynamics. Emerson and Nabatchi (2015) discuss the negotiations that took place between the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, the Interior, and Agriculture to assess and provide resources for the federal borders. Through ongoing negotiations among the network actors, these departments established an institutional framework that led to greater cooperation and coordination between agencies regarding protection, communication, and land management strategies.

Ansell and Gash (2008) discuss negotiation in terms of the collaborative process such as face-to-face dialogue, trust-building, commitment to process, shared understanding, and inter- mediate outcomes. Ansell and Gash do not, however, include negotiation in the institutional design, such as setting the ground rules and participative processes for the collaboration. From this perspective, Ansell and Gash see negotiation as taking place once network actors form and begin their collaborative operations. The collaborative process that Ansell and Gash outline incorporates many of the desired outcomes of interest-based negotiation discussed next.

Negotiation in networks is fluid and ongoing. Ansell and Gash (2018) state that “collab- orative governance can be fragile, time consuming, and risky and can lead to least common denominator outcomes; when it fails, it can accentuate skepticism and conflict, and when it succeeds, it is often due to contextual factors such as inspired leadership or conditions that promote voice over exit” (p. 17). Emerson, Nabatchi, and Balogh (2012) discuss principled engagement as including the process of deliberation or “candid and reasoned communication” (p. 12). Negotiation takes place within deliberation as actors express and listen to one anoth- er’s needs, interests, and ideas. Within the collaborative regimes framework, this is an iterative process that is ongoing throughout a network’s existence. By discussing negotiation explicitly,

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54 Handbook of collaborative public management

one can break apart the processes of negotiation and identify the necessary skills for reducing conflicts within networks.

NEGOTIATION PERSPECTIVES AND STRATEGIES

Public managers have relied on negotiating and bargaining to implement programs across many settings facing a range of conflicts for the majority of U.S. history (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004). O’Leary, Durant, Fiorino, and Weiland (1999) suggest most environmental disputes form from differences in values and worldviews, conflicting interests, and technical uncertainty (pp. 196‒197). Network managers’ ability to negotiate effectively depends on skills including negotiation analysis, using different styles of negotiation (integrative and distributive), considering others’ interests and perspectives, identifying resources available to parties, brainstorming and problem-solving new solutions throughout the negotiation processes. Two approaches to negotiation include distributive (also known as positional, adversarial, confrontational, or competitive) and integrative (also known as interest-based, principled, collaborative, or win–win).

Distributive versus Integrative Negotiation

Scholarly views on negotiation styles shifted from distributive to integrative or interest-based negotiation over the 20th century (Follett, 1940; Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011). Distributive bargaining emphasizes fixed positions of participants. A car dealer and a potential buyer enter their negotiation with set boundaries (reservation prices) on what each is willing to accept or give up for the car. Neither is willing to share all information for fear of giving up bargaining power. Instead, the seller avoids sharing the lowest price they are willing to accept, hoping the buyer will pay more; the buyer will not share the highest price they are willing to pay. Parties experience give-and-take, with neither likely completely achieving what they want.

In distributive bargaining, parties advocate for positions (Lax & Sebenius, 1986) and engage in salesmanship, manipulation, and sometimes lying in an effort to impose their position (Allen-Meyer & Katz, 2000). Fisher, Ury, and Patton (2011) state that positional bargaining creates unwise outcomes, is inefficient, and endangers ongoing relationships (pp. 4‒7). “Winning” comes when one party concedes or yields to the other, usually resulting in win–lose, lose–win, lose–lose, or compromise outcomes (Allen-Meyer & Katz, 2000). In such instances, participants rarely feel fully satisfied with the results of the negotiation. Schneider (2002) conducted a study of the effectiveness of U.S. lawyers and found that partic- ipants viewed those practicing adversarial or positional bargaining as less effective than those using interest-based negotiation techniques.

In contrast to positional bargaining, integrative bargaining considers goals, objectives, values, and ethics of the parties (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011). Also called interest-based nego- tiation, it emphasizes the parties coming together to ask and understand the other’s interests. An interest is the main reason behind one’s actions, decisions, or stated purpose and may entail security, economic wellbeing, belonging, recognition, or autonomy. O’Leary and Bingham (2007) suggest that integrative negotiation aligns with collaborative processes, values, and purposes of networks focused on governance issues, because actors already have a shared interest in seeing the network succeed. It encourages network actors to co-create solutions.

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Negotiation within collaborative networks 55

Skillful negotiation requires negotiation analysis, understanding the differences between posi- tional bargaining and interest-based negotiation, and identifying bad faith bargaining.

Interest-based negotiation emphasizes the zones or boundaries of participants’ goals, values, and interests. Fisher, Ury, and Patton (2011) identify four essential steps to the process: separating people from the problem, focusing on interests as opposed to positions, inventing options for mutual gain, and using objective criteria (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011, p. 13). This process allows parties to work together to creatively solve complex disagreements, as seen in ending Apartheid in South Africa, preventing strikes and boycotts, and negotiating Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt (Katz & Pattarini, 2008).

Katz and Pattarini (2008) state that the interest-based negotiation process “identif[ies] and prioritize[s] interests, develop[s] options that might meet those interests, agree[s] on fair standards for evaluating options, and explor[es] both alternatives and proposals to a negotiated agreement” (p. 88). Parties share their interests or the motivations behind a stated position. A principled negotiator will ask the other party about actual needs and interests. To succeed, each party must view the other as a negotiating partner, with shared interests in resolving the conflict. All parties must honestly disclose their interests and be willing to revise their position (Allen-Meyer & Katz, 2000). In seeking to resolve disputes, the parties create value through collaboration (Brown, Potoski, & Van Slyke, 2006).

Finally, interest-based negotiation provides an opportunity to resolve conflict in a manner that builds trust and understanding between parties. By parties collaborating to find a solu- tion, they address the three components that lead to satisfaction of each party – interests in fair process, fair outcome or substance, and psychological/relationship needs. This increases the likelihood of continued interactions, creating a very useful solution for conflict within networks.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, command systems failed because they did not build common cognition of the situation among the network of emergency respond- ers (Comfort, 2007). Within emergency management literature, centralized, hierarchical management of disaster responses is ineffective, particularly when response organizations need the ability to adapt to changing situations and coordinate communication and actions among the network of responders (Yates & Paquette, 2011). A guiding document for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency identifies the following components as essential for effective emergency management: all hazards, all phases, all impacts, and all stakeholders (Blanchard et al., 2007). This perspective of emergency management inherently requires net- works of stakeholders, including the private sector, the government, and the public, to come together to address disasters collectively and collaboratively. Not only is this the definition of collaborative governance, but it also requires the negotiation of rules and conflict within the emergency networks that form.

When considering the reasons for engaging in integrative negotiation rather than distribu- tive negotiation, power plays an influential role. When there are multiple parties and power between parties is not skewed toward one party, then distributive bargaining is difficult. As actors enter into negotiations, they must be aware of others’ power in the negotiation. Power tends to inspire different strategies of actors. For example, parties with lower positional power in a network will more likely employ a coalition-building strategy (Volkema, Bergmann, & Farquhar, 1997). Coalition-building consists of gathering other parties for support around a common interest. Changes in policies can be a result of coalitions’ abilities to negotiate and

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56 Handbook of collaborative public management

coordinate (Fischer, 2014). The role of power and who has larger, equal, or smaller quantities within a network may shape the interactions of parties as well as their negotiation preferences.

Negotiation Analysis

Negotiation scholarship has undergone significant changes over the past century. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, game theory provided a prescriptive approach with assumptions and the quest to predict equilibrium outcomes (Sebenius, 1992). Game theory gave scholars an understanding of competitive dynamics, opening opportunities for analyzing and under- standing “fairness” principles (Sebenius, 1992). In the 1960s and 1970s, social psychology undertook the study of individual differences among negotiators and situational characteristics (Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, & Valley, 2000). Social psychology introduced a contextual understanding of the negotiation environment. In the 1980s and 1990s, negotiation research incorporated concepts and methods from cognitive psychology research (Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, & Valley, 2000). Cognitive psychology assumed rational behavior among opponents. It sought strategies for negotiators to maximize their gains from a negotiation. In particular, cognitive psychology introduced a concern for fairness and continuing relationships between participants.

Cognitive psychology introduced the negotiation analytic approach, which emphasizes decision analysis. Four features common to negotiation analysis include:

● an asymmetrical prescriptive or descriptive orientation ● a subjective perspective ● consideration for “value left on the table” ● emphasis on “zones of possible agreement” (Sebenius, 1992, p. 20).

Scholars view negotiation as capable of creating value through participants’ interactions and forming creative solutions. Scholars and negotiators study how the formation of rules, conduct, and decision-making processes are opportunities for procedural fairness. When participants have a voice in establishing key processes of the negotiation, they gain a sense of ownership and fairness. Negotiation analysis now includes not only the study of negotiation processes, such as opportunities for gains and losses, but also incorporates the perceptions of participants regarding procedural fairness and value creation.

Negotiation analysis requires a network manager to identify (1) the subject and scope of negotiation, (2) who has the authority to bargain, (3) the culture and context for negotiation, (4) each party’s best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), (5) reservation prices, the settlement range or bargaining zone, and the cooperative or exchange surplus, and (6) possible psychological or cognitive biases for people on both sides of the table (Amsler, 2015). The reservation price is the most a buyer will pay or the least the seller will accept in exchange of goods or services. The settlement range or bargaining zone is defined by the reservation prices. If the buyer is willing to pay enough for the seller to accept, there is a positive bar- gaining zone (Lewicki, Barry & Saunders, 2020) defined by the two reservation prices. The parties have created value by their willingness to enter into this exchange. The cooperative or exchange surplus is the amount that represents the difference between the reservation prices at either end of the bargaining zone.

Managers can readily apply this analysis to a negotiation involving two actors. However, it is problematic within a network. It might provide helpful information for the relative positions

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