Level II Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its ‘Behind the Table’ Challenges

Many situations make it important to productively synchronize "internal" with "external" negotiations. In fact, much research to date has focused on how each side can best manage its internal opposition to agreements negotiated "at the table." Often implicit in this research is the view that each side's leadership is best positioned to manage its own internal conflicts. Traditionally, a negotiator does this by 1) pressing for deal terms that will meet its internal objections, and 2) effectively "selling" the agreement to its key constituencies. However, James Sebenius argues that to achieve your own goals in negotiation it is also vital to understand all the ways in which you can help the other side with the its "behind-the-table" barriers (and vice versa). Independent of any altruistic motives, helping them to solve "their internal negotiation problem" is often the best way to get them to say yes to an agreement that is in your interest. To do this, negotiators should explicitly probe the full set of the other party's interests including the other side's interest in dealing effectively with its internal, behind-the-table challenges and conflicts. This requires you to deeply probe the context in which they are enmeshed: the web of favorable and opposing constituencies as well as their relationships, perceptions, sensitivities, and substantive interests. By way of a number of challenging case examples, this paper details a number of ways to develop this fuller understanding and to act effectively on it. Key concepts include:

• Each side can help the other side with its internal conflicts.
• One side can help the other side by, for example, the form of the negotiating process (to send a useful signal to constituencies); by avoiding (or making) statements that inflame (or mollify) the other side's internal opponents; by constructive actions at the bargaining table informed by knowledge of the other side's internal conflicts; by acting to directly affect the other side's internal situation; and so on.
• The term "Level II" comes from Robert Putnam (1988), who developed the concept of "two level games" in the context of diplomacy and domestic politics. In Putnam's conception, "Level I" games focus on traditional diplomatic agreements, while "Level II" games focus on the formal or informal domestic ratification of such agreements.
• Sebenius extends the meaning beyond diplomacy to focus on Level II domestic constituencies or other internal factions-whether in the public or private spheres-that can support or block "across the table" agreements.
• Level II factions frequently act on behalf of small but influential minority interests.