Meet the Authors
He wrote the book with two game boards (one at home, one abroad) and used the 1978 Bonn Summit to prove his point.
Putnam
Before you walk into any negotiation, you should know this. It's your backup plan if the whole thing falls apart.
BATNA
Once a country or group gets this label, the usual response is ultimatums and sanctions; talking is off the table.
Villain (triggering the no-negotiation doctrine)
In Putnam's framework, THIS is the level where a negotiator has to go home and sell the deal to their own people.
Level II (domestic politics)
At this 1978 summit, world leaders pulled off a rare 'everyone leaves happier' deal by trading economic stimulus for energy policy reforms.
The Bonn Summit
This author says negotiators have two basic playbooks: fight for your slice of the pie, or work together to make the pie bigger.
Hopmann
You start high, they start low, you both inch toward the middle. This is the most common (and most limiting) style of negotiation.
Bargaining/ distributive bargaining
Mnookin calls this the trap of seeing your adversary as less than human. He warns it's one of the biggest obstacles to wise decision-making.
Dehumanization
Two heads of state are sitting across the table from each other hammering out an agreement. According to Putnam, which level is this?
Level I
This Soviet dissident treated his interrogations like a chess match, and refused to make any deal with the KGB, even to get out of prison.
Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky
He wrote a whole book wrestling with one question: when your opponent seems evil, do you talk to them or fight them?
Mnookin
Instead of fighting over who gets the bigger slice, this approach tries to make a bigger pie so everyone wins more.
Integrative/ Problem-solving bargaining
Spector says the tricky thing about 'villainy' is that it's always in the eye of the beholder one side's terrorist is another side's this.
Freedom fighter
A senator announces she won't vote yes on a treaty unless it includes stronger labor protections. Which level is this happening at?
Level II
Mnookin uses this fictional Silicon Valley CEO, whose Japanese partner secretly cloned his product, to illustrate the traps people fall into when they feel betrayed.
The Bikuta case / ResearchCo CEO
This author argues that even terrorist groups have political interests underneath all the violence, and that's actually a reason to look for openings.
Spector
Hopmann says being 'firm' about this while staying flexible about how you get there is the sweet spot in negotiations.
Your fundamental interests / basic goals
Mnookin warns against this 'positive' trap: assuming your adversary is basically just like you and will respond to the same appeals to reason and fairness.
Universalism
The U.S. negotiator makes a big promise at Bonn. BUT back home, Congress still has to approve it. That approval process happens at which level?
Level II
Mnookin argued the U.S. missed an opportunity here in 2001. They issued an ultimatum instead of testing whether a negotiated handover was possible.
The Taliban/ Afghanistan
He showed that Helmut Schmidt privately wanted the exact stimulus package Germany 'reluctantly' agreed to at Bonn
Putman
Hopmann argues that most diplomats default to the fighting-over-slices approach because of the school of thought they were trained in. What is it?
Realism/ Realist
Spector argues that states make a key mistake: they respond to what terrorists DO, but ignore this other thing which is actually the potential entry point for negotiation.
Terrorist interests / motivating political goals
A negotiator exaggerates her domestic constraints to squeeze better terms out of the other side. She's using which level to gain leverage at the other?
Level II (constraining level I)
Spector uses this 1993-94 case where the U.S. negotiated a deal to freeze a nuclear program in exchange for aid and energy as proof that even sworn enemies can find a table.
US-North Korea (Agreed Framework)