Thomas Schelling’s extraordinary contributions to conflict theory and practice are the focus of a special section in this issue, which was steered by Guest Editor Daniel Druckman. As Dan notes, the special section honors the work of a colleague who was deeply valued long before he was honored with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2005. Indeed, Schelling was present at the founding of the Program on Negotiation. Dan has brought together an exceptional set of contributors in honor of an extraordinary colleague, for which we are profoundly grateful. Dan’s introduction to this special section is comprehensive, so my comments here will be brief.
Oran Young, who served as National Security Advisor in the administration of President John F. Kennedy, leads off the section, reflecting on Tom Schelling’s foundational contributions to our understanding of mixed‐motive situations, with a particular focus on the role of commitment tactics on bargaining with long‐term cooperation–conflict dynamics. He also describes Tom’s seminal contributions to our understanding of social norms and the ways in which microbehaviors have macroimplications.
In his contribution, Dean Pruitt considers how Tom’s theories shaped research agendas. (In highlighting the central mixed‐motive assumption, Pruitt traces a scholarly connection to Morton Deutsch, who was honored with a special section in our January issue.) Pruitt notes the broad scope of Tom’s conceptual legacy and that his ideas have “much more research mileage in them.”
The three tributes that follow are by authors whose scholarly work has been heavily influenced by Tom Schelling: Graham Allison, Aroop Mukharji and Richard J. Zeckhauser, and Marie Chevrier. Mukharji and Zeckhauser consider the relevance of Tom’s work to theories of back channel negotiations in their discussion of the unfolding conflict between the United States and North Korea. Allison describes Tom’s seminal contributions to our understanding of the threat posed by nuclear weapons and how to respond to it. Chevrier chronicles Tom’s impact as both a scholarly mentor and lifelong friend.
In their tribute, Mac Destler and Peter Reuter describe the years Tom spent as their colleague at the University of Maryland, where he taught after he retired from Harvard. The special section concludes with the reprint of two relevant speeches, the first, by Dan Druckman, honored Tom when he was awarded the International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) Life‐Time Achievement Award. We conclude with Tom’s own words in the form of his Nobel Laureate speech, which we reproduce with permission from the Nobel Foundation.
In addition to the special section, this issue features a research report by Meriem Kalter, Katalien Bollen, and Martin Euwema on “The Long‐Term Effectiveness of Mediating Workplace Conflicts.” Focusing on mediated workplace disputes in the Netherlands, the authors surveyed parties within four weeks of the mediation and then a year afterward. There have been surprisingly few studies that track perceptions of mediation processes and outcomes over time, and this study faced the predictable challenges of collecting matched pairs of data at two points in time. Although the sample is small, the authors obtained sufficient responses to undertake multivariate analysis and draw some interesting conclusions.
They find that short‐term measures of mediation effectiveness, such as reported reconciliation, satisfaction with the mediator, satisfaction with the outcome, and trust in the agreement are each predictors of long‐term mediation effectiveness. Interestingly, reported satisfaction with the mediation process right after mediation is not a predictor of long‐term satisfaction with the mediation process. Unsurprisingly, supervisors reported that they perceived a higher level of compliance with the final agreement than did subordinates, but other measures did not show as many differences according to hierarchy as one might expect.
Holger Janusch contributes an article entitled “The Interaction Effects of Bargaining Power: The Interplay between Veto Power, Asymmetric Interdependence, Reputation, and Audience Costs.” Although sources of bargaining power are analytically distinct, they coexist in real life. This article, which is centered on the role of power in international relations, examines the various ways in which they can interact. The article focuses on rationalistic sources of power and employs the language of game theory in its analysis.
Veto power in international relations, Janusch notes, generally involves the ability of one nation to veto potential cooperation among nations. Veto power assumes, however, that changes in the status quo require the consent of all parties – that all have equal veto ability, such as a multilateral prisoner’s dilemma situation. On the other hand, asymmetric interdependence allows for actors to end international cooperation on a unilateral basis. Stated this way, the concepts seem to be mutually exclusive, but the essay brings in additional forms of power – reputation and audience costs – to explain how the different power dynamics can be observed as co‐occurring in international relations. Janusch illustrates his examination of the ways in which veto power, asymmetry, and audience and reputation costs interact by analyzing the Andean free trade negotiations involving Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and the United States (with the president and Congress as “veto players”). Altogether, this issue looks back to the past and finds guidance for the future.
