There are ways of overcoming refusal to negotiate by using existing moral, legal, and political power against intransigence.
Governance can only respond to people’s needs if everybody is prepared to negotiate. Both the government and the governed need to have some flexibility – yet there are people who refuse to compromise. The inevitability of disagreement was highlighted at the beginning of this book (2.2).
The conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours is a prime example of intransigence feeding endless conflict, as described earlier (6.6.7.5). Martin Indyk wrote, in February 2024, that The Strange Resurrection of the Two-State Solution is “the Only Imaginable Peace”:
“There are, after all, only a few possible alternatives to the two-state solution. There is Hamas’s solution, which is the destruction of Israel. There is the Israeli ultra-right’s solution, which is the Israeli annexation of the West Bank, the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the deportation of Palestinians to other countries. There is the “conflict management” approach pursued for the last decade or so by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which aimed to maintain the status quo indefinitely—and the world has seen how that worked out. And there is the idea of a binational state in which Jews would become a minority, thus ending Israel’s status as a Jewish state. None of those alternatives would resolve the conflict—at least not without causing even greater calamities. And so if the conflict is to be resolved peacefully, the two-state solution is the only idea left standing.”
“Over time, majorities in both societies may recognize that the only way to secure the future for their children is to separate out of respect rather than engage out of hatred.”
The diversity of human nature should be something to celebrate, but it leads to practical problems when people try to impose their views on others. The following sections explore ways of overcoming refusal to negotiate in three different areas of contestation:
· Religious absolutism has led to numerous wars over the centuries (9.6.1). The problem is not people's differences, but the way in which they can lead to open conflict. People cannot be persuaded to change their views, so the effort must be to persuade most people that it is futile and dangerous to try to forcibly convert others.
· Political dissidents can try to impose their views on a society (9.6.2). Violence must be forcibly suppressed, using the law, but ultimately they must be persuaded that political negotiation is the best way of obtaining the results they seek.
· Authoritarian intransigence has led to numerous violent uprisings and collapses of law and order (9.6.3). People become frustrated when a government refuses to negotiate on what they see as reasonable demands. Violent clampdowns by the government have repeatedly been shown to be counterproductive, so negotiation is the only way of resolving differences. Arbitration can help in some circumstances, and some individuals may be able to access support on the basis of human rights law.
Intransigence is not always one-sided in these scenarios. Although one side might accuse the other of refusing to negotiate, situations are often more complicated than that. The common factor is that those involved need to treat each other with respect.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).