Splitting a Difference of Opinion

Argumentation

Negotiation is not only used to settle differences of interest but also to settle differences of opinion. Discussants who are unable to resolve their difference about the objective worth of a policy or action proposal may be willing to abandon their attempts to convince the other and search instead for a compromise that would, for each of them, though only a second choice yet be preferable to a lasting conflict. Our questions are: First, when is it sensible to enter into negotiations and when would this be unwarranted or even fallacious? Second, what is the nature of a compromise? What does it mean to settle instead of resolve a difference of opinion, and what might be the dialectical consequences of mistaking a compromise for a substantial resolution? Our main aim is to contribute to the theory of argumentation within the context of negotiation and compromise formation and to show how arguing disputants can shift to negotiation in a dialectically virtuous way. Keywords Compromise Á Fallacy of bargaining Á Fallacy of middle ground Á Mixed difference of opinion Á Negotiation Á Resolution & Jan Albert van Laar j.a.

2006

In the public policy-making arena, stakeholders and decision-makers are engaged in a never-ending process of trying to influence each other's thinking and behavior. Sometimes, this is accomplished through option one: conversation in which one party seeks to convince another to do something (ie, lend support, change their mind) on the basis of evidence or argument. More often than not, though, an exchange of views–no matter how elegantly presented–is insufficient to alter strongly held beliefs.

The history of war and conflicts is as old as human history itself. Along with it always existed attempts to find ways and means to reconcile conflicting parties and reach peace. In today's world, more than ever, where war and conflicts are everyday occurrence is imperative to find faster and reliable ways how to resolve conflicts. Reaching a constructive compromise is extremely difficult (as often even implementation phase creates additional hitches) as the parties involved pretend or believe that all of their demands for peace deal are rational and thus should be fulfilled. While one party may have expertise in negotiation process itself, the other may be unwittingly unprepared, and believing that honesty and fairness will result in impartial peace deal. This is, unfortunately, not always so. The aim of this paper, besides targeting these types of naïve perceptions, is to inspire others to be fully prepared prior entering negotiation process. The negotiation strategy and along with steps and tactics is the fundament of this research. History of negotiations teaches us that often the strong and more prepared side tends to win more in a negotiation process than the weak and unprepared one. Yet studying and exploring the approach to reach a constructive compromise is essential and conducive even if you happen to find yourself weaker party vis-à-vis stronger opposing rival. The purpose of this study is to analyse the implications of negotiating strategies in the course of reaching the eventual constructive compromise. Throughout, this paper has endeavoured to answer numerous but distinct issues related to the topic and offer a balanced analysis on the arguments explored. The study also delves into some international conflicts (resolved and unresolved) 120 examining them in light of potential constructive compromise. Finally the study ends up by concluding that constructive compromise strategy that focuses, above all, on creativity, analytical ability and rationality requires often enormous time and efforts to reach desired result, but ends fully justify means.

Business negotiations form an integral part of daily business operations for managers at all hierarchical levels. In this context, negotiators are often faced with dealing with different types of conflicts with the opposite party. The main aim of this paper is to identify the ways managers solve the conflicts that emerge during the negotiating process. An additional aim of the paper is to identify the factors that influence the choice of conflict management strategy. For that purpose, the survey has been conducted among 256 Croatian managers. The results of the study reveal five factors that affect the manner in which conflicts are resolved. Those factors consist of company size, hierarchical level of the manager, aims of the negotiating process, negotiator's autonomy and the importance of teamwork.

Annual Review of Psychology, 1992

Argumentation, 2016

Negotiation and deliberation are two context types or genres of discourse widely studied in the argumentation literature. Within the pragma-dialectical framework, they have been characterised in terms of the conventions constraining the use of argumentative discourse in each of them. Thanks to these descriptions, it has become possible to analyse the arguers’ strategic manoeuvres and carry out more systematic, context-sensitive evaluations of argumentative discussions. However, one issue that still must be addressed in the pragma-dialectical theory—and other contextual approaches to argumentation—is how to distinguish negotiation and deliberation in practice. In this paper, I seek to develop criteria that can help the analyst identify them in discourse. To this end, I characterise the felicity conditions of the superordinate speech acts defining and structuring deliberation and negotiation encounters.

Argumentation

The purpose of this paper is to show the pervasive, though often implicit, role of arguments in negotiation dialogue. This holds even for negotiations that start from a difference of interest such as mere bargaining through offers and counteroffers. But it certainly holds for negotiations that try to settle a difference of opinion on policy issues. It will be demonstrated how a series of offers and counteroffers in a negotiation dialogue contains a reconstructible series of implicit persuasion dialogues. The paper is a sequel to van Laar and Krabbe (2017), in which we showed that for some differences of opinion it may be reasonable to shift from persuasion dialogue, aimed at a resolution of the difference on the merits, to negotiation dialogue, aimed at compromise, whereas in the present paper we show that such a shift need not amount to the abandonment of argumentation. Our main aim in this paper as well as in the previous one is to contribute to the theory of argumentation within the context of negotiation and compromise formation.

Philosophical Papers, 2020

Prevailing literature argues that arguing is the only appropriate mode of deliberation. The literature acknowledges bargaining, storytelling, and other forms of communication, but is unwilling to describe these as deliberation, properly speaking. The claim is that describing them as such would amount to concept stretching. My first thesis is that arguing exhausts neither the legitimate modes of deliberation nor the modes for effective deliberation. To do this I further develop a two-type categorization of issues I have employed elsewhere to show that argument alone is sufficient for bringing closure to issues in the first category, but bargaining is needed to reach agreements on issues in the second category. I observe that the more agreeable variant of the second category of issues constitutes a great deal of issues deliberated outside the purely theoretical classroom. Progressing from these observations, my second thesis is that bargaining is in fact the preeminent way of reaching agreements in political deliberation. To illustrate this, I demonstrate that normative differences and distributive consequences are inherent features of political issues.

International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 2017

Negotiation is an instrument or tool in making an interaction each other, where internally in the human personality act as the negotiator or even externally who involving any actors in order to obtain specific goals. In the implementation, negotiation is not an instant way to get or having any limitation time, but will be proceed in time until it is reaching the goals by struggled through the step by step and its mechanism. These conflict phenomenom have been an existing thing at the very beginning of human life which continuously happening and developing in the limitless time, whether it is conflict between state with state or non-state actor with nonstate actor. Negotiation become the options in solving a conflict because assumed as the good step, where the conflicted actors able to meet together and seeking the solutions of faced problems.

Argumentation, 2004

Argument is often taken to deal with conflicting opinion or belief, while negotiation deals with conflicting goals or interests. It is often accepted that argument ought to comply with some principles or norms. On the other hand, negotiation and bargaining involve concession exchange and tactical use of power, which may be contrasted with attempts to convince others through argument. However, there are cases where it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between bargaining and argument: notably cases where negotiators persuade others through "framing" and cases where the aims of negotiation have to do with public assertion and acceptance. Those cases suggest that the distinction between negotiation and argument is not absolute, and this raises the question whether rules about what is acceptable in argument and rules about what is acceptable in negotiation can all be viewed as instances of more general common norms about human interaction.