A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS “IRONY” AS AN ETHICS FOR NEGOTIATION PRAGMATICS

WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 11 Harv Negot L Rev 147 Harvard Negotiation Law Review Spring 2006 Article A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: “IRONY” AS AN ETHICS FOR NEGOTIATION PRAGMATICS Sara Cobbd1 Copyright (c) 2006 Harvard Negotiation Law Review; Sara Cobb Talk to the experienced professionals They speak of moments in a negotiation process where the unexpected or the surprising happened At times they chalk it up to chance, and other times to the circumstances, and upon very rare occasions to their skill at navigating difficult moments and seeming impasses These are moments in *148 a conflict when a group’s dynamic changes2 times when something extraordinary emerges that occupies a nuanced space between a heightened moment of conflict, and the next moment where that conflict has been diffused or exacerbated But this “something” the “unexpected” exists independently of our ability to predict, control, or even describe it Some call this phenomenon a turning point,4 which is used to refer to a shift in the action, or what Druckman calls a “departure.” Others call it a critical moment6 and refer to a shift in the meaning of events in a social process Still others, as Putnam and Holmer, and Leary have noted, describe these critical moments as moments that generate changes in “persons, relationships, social processes and political institutions.”8 These shifts create uncertainty in the negotiation game, Leary notes, and can open up the possibility of learning insights about oneself, insights about the Other, insights about (improving) the relationship between Self and Other, and how interactions affect Self and Other 10 All of these perspectives share the assumption that negotiation is a nonlinear process and that there are spaces or moments in the process where relationships, and *149 even the process itself, hangs in a precarious balance 11 Thus, “critical” refers to both the process outcomes and the relational trajectories, as well as the formation of identity and the struggle for legitimacy.12 Turning points have been studied within a wide array of research methods, and each focus reflects a set of theoretical assumptions Game theory and behavioral economics study turning points as alterations in the rules of the game 13 Similarly, communication theories, narrative analysis,14 conversational analysis of moves and turns, 15 and frame analysis16 have yielded understanding of the impact of communication processes on negotiation outcomes In ethnography, 17 conversational analysis,18 content coding,19 and process tracing,20 researchers have worked to account for negotiation outcomes by describing features of the negotiation process These methods attempt to document change in negotiation or develop causal formulas to describe the negotiation process, but all too often the complexity of both the larger context of the conflict and the process of negotiation escapes the centripetal force of these kinds of explanations the factors are multiple and themselves undergo qualitative changes that defy a simple formula or categorization While some call for increasing the variety and complexity of the variables under *150 analysis,21 critics of variable analytic methods have argued that “variables” or “factors” are ensnared in the web of inter-subjectivity, and there expire, unable to be discretely separated from an everexpanding array of factors that are always themselves a product of the observer’s perception 22 From this perspective, the analysis of “turning points” calls for new, non-reductionist methods that can withstand the complexity of process analysis and generate descriptions of evolutionary processes in negotiations where these turning points emerge The dimension along which negotiations evolve can be defined as the “relational dimension.” While it is the case that negotiations are embedded within larger conflict settings with other core dimensions (evolutions, for example, of the definition of the problem(s), the structure of the deal, and in the rules of the game), the development of the relationship certainly accompanies these evolutions From this perspective, the relational dimension is a fractal for any, and perhaps all, of these other dimensions Many researchers have documented both the evolution and the devolution of relationships in © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L negotiation and conflict processes 23 We know that turning points or critical moments reflect and/or create changes in relationships, for better or for worse, but we are not sure how these turning points are generated, or how they themselves evolve •Are these turning points linked (patterned), such that the initiation of a given sequence generates momentum, making the next turning point more likely? If this is indeed the case, then both the positive and the negative evolution of relationships can be understood as positive and negative cascading effects It would also imply that once cascades are in motion, they are difficult to reverse •Are there patterns in the evolution/devolution of relationships within a negotiation process? This is implied very generally in the steps of the negotiation process as outlined by Fisher, *151 Ury, and Patton: “separate the people from the problem” is an overtly relational move that blocks cycles of blame; 24 once that is done, the intense effort to understand the interest of the Other (i.e., “focus on interests, not position” 25) as an engaged ethnographer is possible, and this, in turn, sets up the conditions for learning about Self, leading to the generation of creative options that enhance “mutual gain.” 26 The prescriptions offered in Getting to Yes can thus be seen as offering a map for generating turning points 27 These prescriptions, however, not arise from a developed analytic framework that describes or explains the evolution or devolution of relationships because this model was not aimed at description but at prescription •Are these relational changes sudden, unexpected “departures” 28 seen as non-linear only because our relational theory cannot account for them? Are they in fact linear, containing a still hidden causality/probability? Given that our statistical models all too often lack the predictive power to forecast “probability,” what theoretical/analytic processes in the discourse could be harnessed to account for what is currently perceived as non-linear change? This Article offers a theoretical model, which might allow practitioners to identify, anticipate, or even generate a turning point, using it as an indicator of the stage of the relational or narrative development In Part I, I will review the literature on relational evolution with an eye to those perspectives that are best equipped, theoretically, to address turning points in the evolution of relationships The work of the Mental Research Institute is offered as a framework for understanding conflict dynamics as “ironic,” setting the stage for understanding non-linear transformations (changes in the quality of the relationship) In Part II, I will offer a definition of turning points based on positioning theory, building on the notion of conflict as *152 ironic.29 I will present a model for both defining and tracking a sequence of turning points in conflict narratives using the notion of “positioning.” This concept is useful for understanding the intractability of conflict narratives and suggests how these narratives could be destabilized, opening the way toward positive relational development Using the concept of the “better-formed” story,30 I will offer criteria for differentiating conflict narratives from those that could contribute to positive relational development This Article goes beyond merely presenting a theory of the sequence of turning points in narrative dynamics Thus, in Part III, I will offer a strategy for actually generating these turning points Building on a description of conflicts as “ironic processes” (that is, conflicts as interactional cycles where the very efforts that persons make to solve the problem and reduce the conflict actually anchor and perpetuate the conflict), I explore the role of irony in the generation of turning points that contribute to the creation of positive relational development Building on Clift’s notion of irony as a frame that produces a “shift in footing,”31 I will (a) build a conceptual frame for describing the nature of the turning points that are needed to generate the positive evolution of narrative toward new positions-in-discourse for all parties, and (b) provide some suggestions as to how to enact turning points using irony The argument here is that because conflict is inherently ironic and because negotiation all too often takes place within an already problematic relationship, irony itself can be useful in destabilizing conflict narratives, creating the narrative context within which content can be negotiated “containing” the conflict The spiral model of turning points offers a description of different kinds of turning points, and posits a sequence for their positive development 32 Irony is described as a core feature of these turning points, fitting the definition of conflict as an ironic process Thus, *153 irony is both a theoretical condition of conflict, as well as the framework for designing interventions In Part IV, I will suggest that this ironic practice, pertinent to the generation of turning points in positive relational development, is a form of ethical practice in negotiation Defining ethical practice as a function of legitimacy in discourse, the sequence of turning points I propose generates narratives that provide for the positive positions for all parties Additionally, these turning points are ethical in that they construct a narrative in which they internalize, rather than externalize, responsibility Thus, the Article intends to describe a framework for understanding relational development as a function of turning points, which themselves reflect the ironic nature of conflict, as well as ironic transformations in conflict © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L narratives I offer this model as a way of understanding and generating turning points, arguing that this is one way to constitute an ethics of practice I Understanding Turning Points and Their Effect on Relational Development Within the Negotiation Process Relational development has been described across a variety of disciplines and practical domains, allowing us to identify and define relational stages within negotiation processes Yet a survey of these efforts reveals that they have not yielded normative descriptions of the sequence of turning points in the process of relational development despite considerable work on identifying relational stages Researchers have been able to conceptualize relationships in complex ways This Part will stress the need for better methods to direct and assess the dynamics of change in relationships as they are happening, in the process of negotiating the relationships themselves A Relational Development in Negotiation Research Relational shifts are more than empirical surface changes in words and behaviors; they are alterations that shift the ontological conceptions of both Self and Other and the relationship between them A review of the literature on relational development within negotiation research reveals that while relational development is a *154 core issue, it has not been conceptualized as a staged process sequenced by either process or structural features While there is research that tracks the evolution of relationships that relational shifts occur 33 there is little research that distinguishes variation or sequence in the nature of such shifts Kolb and Williams have, for instance, created a typology of “moves and turns” in negotiation processes, and they address their impact on the relationships within the negotiation process 34 However, these moves and turns are not, in and of themselves, defined as relational shifts, despite the fact that they impact relationships; instead, their focus was on the strategy of managing negotiation processes, especially for women While their typology is not itself a sequence, Kolb and Williams are careful to track changes in the dynamics of negotiators’ responses to moves, they are attentive to the unfolding of the interaction via moves and turns 35 This is an important contribution even though they not define moves-asrelational-shifts, patterned within a developmental sequence, as patterned alterations in conceptions of Self and Other 36 Thus, while there is much we know about strategic moves within negotiation, there is much unexplored territory regarding the dynamics of evolution in relationships B Relational Development in Communication Research Communication research also provides some models of relational development Knapp, for example, posits the presence of a set of stages for the development and termination of relationships 37 Though Knapp posits the features of each stage, these stages are not described in terms of the process for the evolution from one stage to the next 38 Similarly, Sluzki has modeled coexistence between ethnic *155 groups as a function of a set of stages in the evolution or development of relationships 39 But like other communication researchers, Sluzki has described characteristics of these stages without discussing the nature of the shifts that allow for movement between these stages However, stage theories enable us to begin to posit the components of an evolution They call for attention to the dynamics of the evolution of the stages themselves C Relational Development Within Psychology and Psychiatric Research Within more psychological approaches to conflict processes, there has been considerable attention to trust and trust-building as the process that reflects relational development 40 If “trust” is defined as an intra-psychic attribute of an individual, it cannot function as a measure/descriptor of relationships, much less of relational development 41 While the “trust-building” exercises and efforts within a negotiation process may indeed increase trust, there has been no attention to trust-building exercises, relative to relational development, or to descriptors of a sequence in the trust-building process, even though trust is widely understood as incremental (as opposed to non-linear) and impacted by situational factors 42 “Trust” is a social psychological approach to relational development assessment, and as *156 such, it is less equipped to account for the dynamic processes within discourse, in interaction New research in relational psychoanalysis yields promising new understandings of the processes of transference and countertransference as the context for the negotiation of a relationship 43 Analysis from this perspective is an inter-subjective process in which the analyst/patient relationship becomes the context in which the healing of the patient’s pathology occurs As Pizer has noted, this “negotiation” constructs the analyst as symmetrically responsible for changing and growing, and providing, in that way, the context for the evolution of the patient 44 Pizer has described the unfolding of the analysis as a process involving the “negotiation of paradox,”45 and while he details these paradoxes, he does not offer a description of relational development except to show, through the careful use of a patient’s case history, the emergence of the ability of patient and analyst to live with paradox While this is an extremely provocative perspective on human development, the markers of the development are obscured by psychoanalytic theory that posits the inability to negotiate paradox as a function © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L of pathology and limitations Pizer made a notable contribution to our understanding of relationships within the negotiation process by providing a way to frame development as the negotiation of paradox, but that negotiation, by *157 the nature of paradox itself a conflict in criteria for classification defies a sequential or developmental modeling Even though Pizer does not offer a developmental sequence, his excellent case studies underscore the paradoxical complexity of his relationship with his client However, Pizer’s own openness to multiple interpretations of his work with the client leaves me, as a reader, unsure as to how he would mark the developmental stages, if any, of the emerging capacity to navigate paradox As a negotiator and a conflict resolution practitioner, I prefer to have markers or indicators, in a developmental sequence, that would signal the evolution or devolution of my relationship with my client I need something other than self-reflection, or my own dreams, something other than the multiplicity itself or the satisfaction of grappling with paradox, as a guide Therefore, while Pizer offers a glimpse into the complexity of inter-subjectivity and the negotiation of relationship, he opens up but does not reduce this complexity, and the result, ironically, is less, rather than more, clarity as to the means of generating relational evolution 46 Hoffman, in the psychoanalytic tradition, does offer a theoretical frame for generating relational development that has embedded in it not just description, but instruction for practice 47 These insights have implications to the extent that negotiations include therapeutic moments, as all social relationships Hoffman argues for the creation of a “liminal space” for the transformation within the analytic relationship; this space allows patients to explore creatively who they can become-it is a space between the conscious and unconscious mind, a threshold space between being and becoming 48 It allows for the spontaneous emergence of new ways of being While Hoffman does provide some instruction and recommendations on how to generate relational development, he also mystifies this instruction by advocating spontaneity, which works against any systematic understanding of the sequence between these moments 49 He does not hypothesize the creation of a set of turning points that are related to the emergence of this liminal space, nor turning points that may follow the creation of this space Merely formulating or theorizing *158 the “inter-subjective”50 does not imply that there exists a set of turning points that track or map change (negative or positive) in relationships Further, with the notion that psychoanalysis is a deep restructuring of intra- and interpersonal processes,51 Hoffman presumes that transformation will be progressive, long-term, and, by implication, incremental as opposed to non-linear In sharp contrast, the team at the Mental Research Institute 52 created “brief therapy,” which is an approach to the transformation of relationships that aims to create non-linear change by interrupting cycles in which patients/clients apply solutions to problems that can intensify and worsen those problems Referred to as “ironic processes,” 53 this approach to therapy theorizes that solutions to problems lie in getting people to enact less of the solution, or its 180-degree opposite What is “ironic” in this context is the often chronic way in which people’s “solutions” applied with the best of intentions to problems exacerbate those problems The focus on “ironic processes” enabled clinicians to attribute positive intent to these problem-generating solutions as they focused on the interactional loops that were anchored by those “solutions.” This was an interpersonal/interactional, rather than intrapsychic, perspective, one that allowed these clinicians to escape the necessity of creating definitions of symptoms based on individual pathology In turn, conceptualizing conflict as “ironic” increased their attention to the role of unintended consequences and patterns of social interaction and the realization that we, even as individuals, are still embedded in a social matrix with other individuals equally embedded in a social matrix These communication specialists were not tracking the evolution of relationships explicitly, but rather were focused on interactional sequences; they were experts at generating turning points in problematic cycles Since they were interested in the interruption of the *159 problem and the solution traps and not the quality of relationships, these interventions, which can be seen as turning points, are not tied to any theory on the evolution of relationships 54 However, as Rohrbaugh and Shoham have noted,55 the communication specialists did document the way that relationships deteriorate through the application of solutions that exacerbate problems Interrupting problem/solution cycles leads to new interactional patterns that hold over time, so this approach provides some theory on relational devolution and strategies for intervention that generate long-term, second-order change in relationships.56 In summary, there needs to be a shift in emphasis from descriptions of relational stages to descriptions of the process of evolution, from an emphasis on outcome to an emphasis on process Description of relational development as a non-linear evolutionary process, not as a set of stages, would enrich our understanding of negotiation, as we would then be in a position to design, not just identify, changes in process Pizer’s link between well-being and the ability to negotiate paradox highlights complexities of the inter-subjective spaces that I will elaborate in Part II, addressing the dynamics of positions in discourse So while the research reviewed in this Part offers descriptions of changes in interaction, or changes in relational states, or © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L even change processes themselves, there is much we need to learn about non-linear change processes, as well as the sequence of the turning points that accompany those processes This is a new area of research in negotiation that has, to date, focused on retrospective analysis of the turning points in negotiation 57 However, given the *160 high stakes of many negotiations, nationally and internationally, it would potentially be very useful to be able to not only identify turning points prospectively, but also to generate them We need to be able to identify them, in situ, as the interaction unfolds Thus the dynamics of relational evolution could be evaluated in the action, not in the outcomes of that action In Part II that follows, I offer a definition of turning points, as well as a theoretical framework for positing them as a sequence II A Model for Turning Points as Positions in Discourse: A Narrative Perspective on Relational Evolution As the above survey of the literature of relational development makes clear, models in psychology and sociology are commonly rooted in the assumptions of evolutionary trajectories, however implicit, that either move or deviate along a continuum I argue that this linear approach does not sufficiently account for the ways in which turning points contribute to the evolution of relationships in the negotiation process This Article offers a spiral model for the development of turning points Drawing on Harré and van Langenhove’s concept of “positioning theory,” 58 I conceptualize turning points in terms of Self/Other positions elaborated in discourse.59 Harré and van Langenhove’s theory of “positioning” provides a foundation for a new analysis of turning points in the interaction itself, rather than in relation to the outcomes of the interaction Further, this analysis sets the stage for a set of prescriptions as to how to generate turning points A Conflict Narratives, Positions in Discourse, and the Relational Struggle for Legitimacy A conflict narrative is a story that contains specific features: first (and perhaps foremost to the parties involved), the narrative provides legitimacy for Self, while de-legitimizing the Other Additionally, it is often the case that the character roles are simplified, both in number and in nature It advances a plot line that has a linear causal structure with the initial conditions residing in the bad intentions, bad actions, or bad traits of the Other It is often the case that the plot is simplified; at times it has no future, at times no past Finally, *161 it provides an evaluative schema based on binary and polarized moral values, and it is often the case that the moral themes are deeply resonant with a cultural value system, which makes it seem natural to privilege their centrality.60 Conflict narratives function rigidly to maintain, if not increase, polarization Accordingly, turning points that generate positive change would need to destabilize the core features of a conflict narrative (character roles, plots, and moral themes) Ironically, the fact that the discussion of the relationship itself can easily activate conflict and reduce mutual inquiry, particularly in the context of protracted conflict, makes it more difficult to reach a negotiated and sustainable outcome, since such an outcome depends on the development of the relationship Destabilization of a conflict narrative is not likely to be effected through confrontation or pleas Further, efforts to “focus on interests, not positions”61 on top of a conflicted relationship can lead to outcomes that not, fundamentally, alter the nature of the relationship, as is clearly the case in failed peace negotiations As Rohrbaugh and Shoham note, conflicts are themselves very ironic in that persons apply solutions to problems that all too often reproduce and intensify the conflict 62 The complexities of conflict narrative and the irony of conflict itself begin to account for how difficult it is, from within, to alter One’s own conflict narrative, much less the conflict narrative of the Other The intractability of conflict narratives can be seen, in turn, as a function of the positioning process Harré and van Langenhove define “positioning” as the process, in interaction, in discourse, by which persons come to occupy a moral location in that discourse 63 A “position” in discourse is a function, they argue, of the storyline that is under development in a conversation or social process 64 Positions are locations in moral *162 frameworks they are not roles or scripts because they are fundamentally reciprocal and oppositional, particularly in conflict narratives where each person positions Self as victim and Other as victimizer Positions confer rights, duties, and obligations on persons and, in the process, instantiate the moral frameworks and narrative structures that constitute these positions Furthermore, positions confer or deny social legitimacy on persons and, given that access to resources (relational, financial, organizational, etc.) depends on legitimacy, the struggle over position is inevitable precisely because these positions are oppositional and reciprocal.65 All positive positions constitute the presence of their negative the person constructed in a narrative as “kind” will be contrasted or would have been (in the history of that relationship or organization) contrasted with a person who was not.66 We only know what is positive through the shadow presence of the negative 67 And even though criteria for constituting a positive position varies with the context, there is certainly enough patterned regularity within and across cultures to be able to know, ahead of time, the criteria that could be mobilized in narrative for the construction of positive and negative positions For example, “patriotic” is clearly a term that has been mobilized since September 11, and © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L Others who are not “patriotic” are often constructed as “disloyal” to “our men and women in uniform.” This positional set (patriotic/disloyal) has been used so often that it contextualizes every conversation about, for example, the war in Iraq In the aftermath of the attacks, disagreement with the Bush administration has been all too often framed as “callous” to the sacrifices our troops make, or as being “soft on terrorism” another version of a negative position *163 In summary, the conflict narrative is the locus for the struggle over meaning, which is, in turn, the locus for the struggle over legitimacy who is right, who is wrong, who is good, who is bad, and why 68 The criteria for legitimacy emerge in the social construction of positions in interaction, reflected in the conflict narrative 69 In the process of negotiation, the struggle for position is complicated by the story that contains the substantive issues that populate the definition of the problem the negotiation over any resources is a negotiation for access to resources, 70 which is a function of the legitimacy that is conferred on people via the positions they occupy in discourse 71 Further, legitimacy is the discursive condition on which the privilege of access to resources depends, so it is not the resources themselves, but the access to them that is at stake in the negotiation process B From Conflict Narrative to “Better-Formed” Stories Luckily for those of us who have ever been de-legitimized, legitimacy is fluid always incomplete, slightly unstable, partial-and *164 evolving Because positions are unstable, even the best relationships, where positive positions are reciprocally and routinely constructed,72 can become problematic And once this is so, it is very difficult for the relationship to evolve or develop in a positive direction, despite the inherent fluidity of positions Once instantiated, these positions become the basis for the relationship, and characterize the present as well as the past and the future of that relationship 73 The tenacity of discursive positions is a function of their triadic interactional structure, including: (1) A “proposal”74 of the position set (for speaker and Other, as positions are always reciprocal) by a speaker, complete with the criteria for the evaluation of good and bad, and a narrative framework that provides the logic for a position; (2) The interactional elaboration (acceptance, rejection or modification) of that proposal, by Others whose positions are implicated; this elaboration is itself a proposal;75 and *165 (3) The elaboration (of Other’s elaboration) by the original speaker Because elaborations of a given position, which can themselves be proposals, are chains of elaborated proposals, it is very difficult, if not impossible to locate the beginning of the chain, even if (or perhaps especially if) participants’ perspectives are used to identify the beginning of the chain 76 From this perspective, a position in discourse is not a static outcome of the conversation; it is itself, by nature, a negotiation of the narrative system that contains the criteria for constructing legitimacy itself The narrative system is dynamically constructed through interaction, and its hegemonic power is a function of the coherence of the plot (the causal sequence of events that structure past, present, and future), character roles, and themes or core values that are used to evaluate those roles in the context of that plot Changes to this narrative system, when elaborated by others, destabilize the hegemonic control of narrative and open it to new plot events, new causal logics, new themes, and new character roles.77 When negative positions are elaborated, they generate changes in the narrative that reduce the complexity of the plot and themes, as the de-legitimized make counter-accusations, denials, excuses, and/or justifications Rather, *166 the process of “opening” the narrative involves the construction of positive positions for the Self and the Other, owning participation in the unfolding of the events past, present, and future and participating in the elaboration of a moral framework that “contains”78 the (discourse) positions of both parties This, in turn, generates the conditions by which persons can, at the meta-level, take responsibility in the narrative for the conditions for the emergence of narrative itself The result is a narrative that is collectively elaborated and generates interactional patterns that contribute to relational development Narratives that display these conditions can be said to be “better-formed” and have the following characteristics: 79 (1) Roles that offer positive positions for all parties; (2) Plots that display circular logic, rather than linear “punctuation,” creating descriptions of interdependence between actors; (3) Plots that display circular logics and temporal complexity, with elaboration of past, presentn and futures; and (4) Moral frameworks that are complex, rather than dualistic and polarized The “better-formed” story generates interactional patterns that are collaborative and constitutive of sustainable relationships Thus, the “better-formed” story can provide another lens on sustainable agreements Further, “mutual gain” can be understood as the construction and elaboration of a narrative that contains the features of a “better-formed” story From this perspective, Pareto optimality80 can be re-defined using narrative and positioning theory: it is the narrative, collectively elaborated, which contains the features listed above that *167 generate resilient narratives, creating a positive spiral that itself © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L tends to inoculate the interaction against relational devolution 81 While “optimality” can be seen as a function of narrative features, this lens alone does not describe the pragmatics that generate the narrative features associated with a positive relational spiral In other words, knowing the narrative features does not tell us how to generate them This Article offers a theoretical model for a pragmatics of narrative changes as “turning points” that contribute to the positive evolution of conflicted relationships C Turning Points as Narrative Transformation: Generating Positive Relational Development Drawing on the research on “better-formed” stories which provides the basis for a normative narrative model, 82 there are three dimensions of narrative that require transformation in the movement from conflicted to “better-formed” narrative: (1) Plot (from linear to circular logic, as well as from temporal simplicity to complexity, i.e., past, present, and future); (2) Character roles (from de-legitimized Others to legitimized Others, as well as less than totally legitimate Selves/Speakers); and (3) Themes/values (from dualistic to complex value systems) Turning points,83 (TP) can be seen as elaborated proposals in discourse which contribute to these shifts (see Figure below) Figure TABULAR OR GRAPHIC MATERIAL SET FORTH AT THIS POINT IS NOT DISPLAYABLE KeyNote: Stage is the initial condition; Turning Point follows Stage However, in all other stages, the turning points generate the stage, so they precede the stage Stage 1: High in legitimacy for Self, Low in Legitimacy for Other Turning Point 1: Reducing Legitimacy for Self (speaker explores their ‘underbelly‘); involves a proposal made by speakers, elaborated by their Other(s), that constitutes the speakers themselves as less than perfect Turning Point 2: Increased legitimacy for Other (a proposal made by speakers, elaborated by their Other(s), that constitutes Other as less than totally de-legitimate (or slightly legitimate) Stage 2: Moderate Legitimacy for Self and Other Turning Point 3: Creation/elaboration of ironic (circular) plot (a proposal made by speakers, elaborated by their Other(s), that constitutes a circular logic in the plot) Stage 3: Reconstruction of Shared History Turning Point 4: Creation/elaboration of multiple possible scenarios (a proposal made by speakers, elaborated by their Other(s), that adds complexity to the temporal dimension of the plot (developing the present, past, or future) Stage 4: Construction of a Shared Future Turning Point 5: Reflection on shared/distinct values, from overlapping traditions (a proposal made by speakers, elaborated by their Other(s), that adds complexity to the value system in the narrative, reducing the polarization of values) Stage 5: Construction of a Shared Value System A systemic approach to narrative would suggest that these five turning points are equivalent in their utility/function in the production of a “better-formed” story, in the sense that one could “start” with any of them Positioning theory, however, would suggest that plot and themes serve the production of positive/negative valence of *169 roles (positions)84 as the discourse position, not as the content of the conflict; plot and themes are primary to social process 85 If the positions in discourse drive interaction, then we could posit that positions are altered prior to shifts in plot sequence or value systems (themes) Or, to put it another way, if we try to shift the plot and the themes without having made or simultaneously making some shift toward the legitimacy of the Other and/or toward our own de-legitimacy, proposals to make plots or themes more complex will not hold, despite the fact that these changes may “improve” the story For example, in the case of the Middle © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L East conflict, attempts to augment the story line to elaborate future scenarios, each building from a different metaphor of the past, would be less likely to “jell” than if those attempts were made after each side identified how their actions increased the violence of the Other’s actions how each side has forced the Other toward more violence While this does not produce positive positions, it does require each side to reduce the legitimacy of its own position As we have seen, moving forward with peace proposals all too often requires parties to paste solutions on top of de-legitimized positions each side maintains a positive position for Self (victim) and a negative position for Other (victimizer) The result is all too often a “fragile peace” followed by renewed violence.86 The implication here is that even though there are many ways to generate narrative transformation (shifts in plots, themes, and character roles), those changes that impact the legitimacy/de-legitimacy of character roles (reducing victim/victimizer) are most likely to create what Pearce and Cronen called “charmed loops,” or positive interactional cycles in which the relationship becomes the context for the *170 interpretations, which lead to actions that enhance the relationship 87 These loops/spirals have a momentum that, once started, have as much force as the cascading effects of accusation and blame cycles Either way, the legitimacy or de-legitimacy of the speakers is primary to relational evolution and devolution Therefore, there are many ways to generate changes in narrative components; the turning points that alter discursive positions enable subsequent changes in plots and moral themes to jell The reverse is not the case changes to plot or themes which not simultaneously lead to changes in discursive positions not generate cascading effects that lead to “charmed loops.” In this way a logic in the sequence of turning points can be posited (with the possibility that TP1, TP2 and TP3 being interchangeable, with TP4 and/or TP5 following) For example, it would be more likely for a new set of shared values to emerge from the negotiations of the Middle East conflict after the creation of a circular logic that displayed the tragic irony of each side’s role in the production of the ongoing, intractable, conflict that has brought them to the negotiation table Discussions of shared values, in the absence a circular logic of the past that helps display interdependence, would likely break apart under the weight of linear stories where blame is externalized Likewise, efforts to develop scenarios of the future, which build in temporal complexity, would likely also collapse under the weight of efforts to maintain Self/victim and Other/victimizer positions in discourse 88 This implies that turning points that contribute to (a) reducing the legitimacy of speakers, (b) increasing or enhancing the legitimacy of their Others, and (c) creating a circular narrative logic are core to the development of the elaboration of a shared value system and future-oriented scenarios Further, I would suggest that relative to TP1, TP2, and TP3, it is TP1 the reduction of legitimacy for Self that is crucial for reducing, in subsequent turns, the de-legitimacy of their Others Certainly the opposite is not the case; it would be unwise and impractical to make proposals that would reduce the legitimacy of the Other without first reducing one’s own legitimacy *171 Finally, the creation of a narrative that displays a circular logic could be elaborated, in principle, without shifts in the legitimacy of either party or their Others, although it is unlikely from a practical viewpoint Parties want to externalize responsibility, which in turn, help them maintain their position as “victim.” 89 As circular logic reduces the externalization of responsibility, it is unlikely that circular logic could be elaborated unless and until the legitimacy of the speakers is decreased and the legitimacy of their Others increased Based on this logic, as opposed to empirical evidence, it is possible to prescribe a sequence that could be more likely to generate positive cascading effects, leading to the creation of a better-formed story This proposed sequence of turning points is as follows: (1) TP1: Turning points that reduce the legitimacy of speaker’s construction of Self; (2) TP2: Turning points that increase the legitimacy of the speaker’s construction of the Other; and (3) TP3: Turning points that create a circular logic displaying the interdependence of the actor’s actions While it is certainly plausible that the creation of shared values, and the construction of future scenarios, built on the present from the past, could effect changes in discourse positions, I am suggesting that unless the positions are addressed first, they will often disrupt the possibility of future orientation, or values exploration In summary, I have defined turning points as proposals offered by the speaker that generate shifts in narratives, leading to relational development (or to its devolution) I have also suggested that this development is a dynamic process rather than a set of discrete sequenced stages Further, I have argued that the movement from a conflict narrative to a “better-formed” story implies not only a set of turning points, but also a logic for their ordering in terms of their import for relational development But up to this point in this Article, I have not described how to generate these turning points In the Parts that follow, I shall offer a framework for modeling the creation of these turning points from within the interaction, attending specifically to those turning points that are generative of shifts in discursive positions *172 III Re-positioning Self and Other as “Shift of Footing” in Discourse: The Role of Irony in Relational © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L Development Technically, there are many possible ways to generate turning points that alter positions in discourse Some methods, such as “appreciative inquiry” rely on the formulation of questions that function to connote Others positively 90 Other methods involve “reframing,” which has been widely acknowledged as a method of altering interpretations and opening parties to new ways of understanding the conflict/problem.91 However, “reframing” is itself a broad category of technologies and all too often provides no more than an explanation for change, rather than a prescription about how to change frames in ways that are generative Some of these technologies involve paradoxical interventions, 92 some advocate “shingled” frames, 93 some require the restructuring of interaction through imposition of ritual, 94 and some involve changes in key myths or scenarios 95 This partial list demonstrates the complexity that lurks within the concept of “reframing.” This complexity all too often draws our analytic attention to the “state change” itself (from one meaning to another) without necessarily providing a description of how that change actually occurs We know far more about how positions cannot be altered in conflict processes Direct confrontation, challenge, negation, accusation, excuses, etc., are all efforts on the part of speakers to alter the interpretative field in which the negotiation and the conflict are taking place We know from experience and research on “accounts” 96 that all too often they backfire, increasing animosity and even the likelihood of violence For new positions to be elaborated, not only must *173 they be “shingled”97 to existing positions, i.e., overlapped onto existing positions, like shingles on a roof, so as not to appear out of the blue, but also they must be offered in a manner that invites Others to elaborate them From this perspective, re-positioning is not only a function of new frames (plots, role, and themes), but also a function of delivery and elaboration of the “proposals” 98 speakers make in the process of negotiating a resolution to a conflict In other words, for a proposal to work as a turning point and actually shift positions in discourse, such that the relationship can develop, the proposal must itself be framed in a way that enhances the possibility of its adoption A Framing Proposals for Elaboration: Irony as Rhetorical Strategy In Clift’s discussion of irony as a rhetorical device, 99 she provides a description of irony as a practice that favors the development or framing of proposals that have high potential for elaboration She notes that irony, as performance, involves the creation of a frame by speakers, which places the speaker both inside and outside the frame through the way that speakers invoke and simultaneously disqualify their own perspective Proposals made in this manner are at once advocated by the speaker and indirectly contradicted The consequence is that ironic performance sets up a resonance between possible worlds, opening a space for play Consider the following example: In negotiating for more space for my academic unit (ICAR), I had not been able to get a straight answer from a university *174 official regarding exactly how much space we would be allotted in a new building Without this information, I was unable to evaluate the offer to move ICAR into that space After I asked several times for specifics, the administrator said that there were too many contingencies to be able to provide specifics I finally confessed to him that I was too rigid a person to deal well with contingencies (while he, on the other hand was more “evolved” and “flexible”) After much hilarity about my rigidity, we sorted the contingencies into “small c” contingencies and “large C” contingencies He then went on to “help me with my rigidity” by giving me a baseline figure of square feet that I could count on From that point on, we have maintained the “joke” about my rigidity last week he introduced me to the contractor, calling me the Director of Rigid (I am the Director of ICAR) There were lots of joking about “rigid clients,” and I promised the contractor I would go to therapy When I see the contractor now, he asks me how the therapy is going, and I tell him “terribly.” I then proceed to let him know about all the problems I have noticed in the construction, which, were the therapy to take hold, I might not see He threatens to find me a new therapist, but then addresses the construction problems I now have a relationship with this administrator and the contractor a relationship that works when we play with the problems that arise 100 In this vignette, there was a conflict materializing that would have, could have, pitted me, as an academic administrator, against one of the staff inside of Plant Management Division of the university Within a polarized relationship, that contractor and Division could have stalled our construction project interminably I could have complained to the Provost, perhaps to no avail, and perhaps leading to increased anger on the part of the contractors Anyone who has worked with contractors before can see the path that would unfold, and anyone who is a contractor reading this Article is also familiar with the deterioration of a relationship with clients *175 While some may argue that this vignette is not necessarily ironic, but rather demonstrates the use of humor 101 or flattery, I would argue that the discursive structure of the episode above is indeed an example of ironic practice, in that the actors, the characters, are both inside and outside they are the framers, and they are the ones doing the framing of © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L themselves, explicitly so This ironic performance, maintained over subsequent interactions, is complex on multiple levels, but to simplify, it is an example of ironic performance in the way the speaker de-legitimized Self and legitimized Other But it is different from instances where I really de-legitimize Self (perhaps detailing my failings to family and friends in a way that is filled with self recriminations and requests for support) My positioning of Self is presented as play, which contradicts the move precisely as it is made; truly rigid people cannot bear framing themselves as rigid, while flexible people can frame themselves as rigid So the de-legitimized position disqualifies itself, and, like a double negative, converts to positive Likewise, the speaker’s construction of the Other as positive shimmers on the horizon of my construction of him as “recalcitrant”102 (stubborn) There is an intentional play in my construction of Other as “flexible” in a context where he has refused to cooperate, and his laugh recognized that “play.”103 *176 Further, as Clift notes, the performance itself locates me, as speaker, both within the frame (rigid) and outside it (being the person who is framing myself).104 Being inside and outside of the frame at the same time constructs a position of “detachment” for the speaker, as irony is often used to make negative judgments that otherwise are too disqualifying or impossible to propose without destroying the relationship and setting a negative escalation in motion: “[S]ince irony makes a degree of detachment possible, it is unsurprising that it should be used to make negative evaluations; there is, after all, little need to disassociate oneself from positive judgment.”105 Far from being only an issue of play, ironic performance has an “edge.”106 It offers judgment and evaluation, often in places where the ironist can “enter potentially sensitive interactional territory.”107 The “edge” in irony has historically been fed by its association to power or authority, often mobilized to effect evaluations that could not otherwise be spoken 108 For this reason, irony often has negative connotations: “The negative connotations of irony (deception, disparagement, destabilization) which enter theoretical discourse with the word and its derivation from the Greek eiron are never totally absent from the discussions of irony’s normative politics.” 109 *177 Precisely because ironic performance is an evaluative practice, it creates both exclusion and affiliation 110 Exclusion occurs through the creation and adoption of the dimensions for evaluation of legitimacy (“rigid versus flexible”) 111 However, affiliation happens as that framework and the positions it implies are adopted and elaborated by both parties Further, since Others not elaborate proposals where they are negatively positioned, affiliation can be seen, pragmatically, as the elaboration of a proposal of a positive position, by speaker, for Other The affiliated response often appears, as Clift notes, through the play surrounding the extension of the ironic performance itself, over several turns.112 This was the case in the example above, as the university administrator, and then later the contractor, extended and perpetuated the joke Laughter is clearly evidence of the irony it is the sign that the “shift in footing” has been adopted Irony can be performed in a variety of ways,113 both verbally and symbolically For purposes of this Article, I will limit my discussion to the performance of irony through exaggeration (Clift calls this the “impossible descriptions” irony 114), understatement, and reversals or inversions Ironic performance through exaggeration is clearly present when a speaker exaggerates a trait/feature within a story (a *178 “disagreement” is referred to as a “pitch battle,” or “obedience” is referred to as “robotic compliance,” or failure to recall a date or face is referred to as “Alzheimer’s”) For facilitators, this kind of exaggeration creates an inside-outside footing in a negotiation one has to have enough distance from the trait/feature to exaggerate it and can be very helpful in that it pokes fun at the feature being exaggerated However, when exaggeration of a negative position for Other is performed (a temperamental leader is framed as a “chest-pounding gorilla”), the result is not affiliation but exclusion that could lead to anger, humiliation, and the devolution of relationships, as Hutcheon has noted 115 For exaggeration to build affiliation between the parties, it must not be harnessed to the point where there is a production of negative positioning in the discourse Understatement is another mode of ironic performance In the reverse of exaggeration, speakers minimize the feature/trait within the story, and again, this understatement can be harnessed to generate relational development or devolution To frame oneself as “cranky” about the decline of stock valuation in conversation with one’s financial advisor is likely an understatement that signals a depth of anger not acknowledged; the speaker is, thus, both in the frame and outside the frame, creating the frame in which she and the advisor exist This inside-outside quality creates a “safe” space for the exploration of the relationship Because the advisor knows that the speaker actually is much more than “cranky,” and recognizes that the speaker has chosen a more playful (minimizing) term, the advisor is much more likely to accept responsibility for missed opportunities or mistakes made on his part And from the speaker’s perspective, having the advisor take some (more) responsibility for those mistakes increases, paradoxically, the speaker’s confidence in that advisor Again, ironic performance via understatement can effect a “shift of footing” that is generative of “charmed loops” and relational development © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 10 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 23 For a sample of literature that addresses changes in relationships across international, organizational, and interpersonal contexts, and a discussion of change in relationships in the negotiation and/or mediation process, see generally Robert A Bush & Joseph P Folger, The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition 41-84 (2005); Barbara Gray, In Theory: Negotiating with Your Nemesis, 19 Negot J 299 (2003); Putnam & Holmer, supra note 8; Cobb, supra note 3; Kolb & Williams, supra note 11 24 Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In 17-39 (Penguin Books 1991) (1981) 25 Id at 40-55 26 Id at 56-80 27 I have long argued that this map does not provide sufficient detail to enable negotiators to manage complex situations/contexts For someone omniscient, this map would be an excellent device for reaching effective and ethical negotiated outcomes But as things are, the map is too imprecise to manage the complexity of most protracted conflicts 28 For a description of shifts and their relationship to outcomes, see generally Druckman, supra note 19; Daniel Druckman, Departures in Negotiation: Extensions and New Directions, 20 Negot J 185 (2004) For a description of changes in communication patterns in conflict processes, see generally W Barnett Pearce & Stephen W Littlejohn, Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (1997) 29 See Rom Harré & Luk van Langenhove, Cultural Stereotypes and Positioning Theory, 24 J for Theory Soc Behav 359, 362-64 (1994) Harré & van Langenhove draw on a long line of Harré’s work, including Rom Harré, Social Construction of Emotions (1986) 30 See generally Sara Cobb, Fostering Coexistence in Identity-Based Conflicts, in Imagine Coexistence: Restoring Humanity After Violent Ethnic Conflict 294 (Antonia Chayes & Martha L Minow eds., 2003); Carlos E Sluzki, The Better-Formulated Story, Keynote Address at the Italian Society for Relational Psychology and Psychotherapy International Congress: Adolescents and Their Systems (Apr 1992) (transcript on file with the author) 31 Rebecca Clift, Irony in Conversation, 28 Language Soc’y 523, 523 (1999) 32 This may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it is not I will argue that certain turning points are necessary for relational development, but they may be non-linear in their appearance As I will define relational development in terms of narrative process, I will be arguing that narrative (relational) development depends on the appearance and elaboration of key narrative features which function as turning points in the development of the narrative 33 See William A Donohue & Gregory D Hoobler, Relational Frames and Their Ethical Implications in International Negotiation: An Analysis Based on the Oslo II Negotiations, Int’l Negot.: J Theory & Prac 143 (2002) Donohue posits the importance of “relational shifts” for creating an environment where folks could “bargain in good faith.” Id at 143 34 See Kolb & Williams, supra note 11, at 104-36 © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 19 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 35 Id at 155-82 36 This is perhaps a function of their assumption of the complexity of conversations which would preclude easy descriptions of a sequence of patterned moves and turns 37 See generally Tim Borchers, Relationship Development, in Interpersonal Communication, http:// www.abacon.com/commstudies/interpersonal/indevelop.html (last visited Nov 12, 2005) (describing the evolution of relationships) 38 This is also the case with other relational development theories See, e.g., Judi Miller, Learning from Early Relational Experience, in Learning About Relationships 1, 8-9 (Steve Duck ed., 1993) 39 Carlos E Sluzki, The Process Toward Reconciliation, in Imagining Coexistence: Restoring Humanity After Violent Ethnic Conflict supra note 30, at 21-32 40 See The Conflict Resolution Information Source, http:// www.crinfo.org (last visited Oct 12, 2005), to pull up a sample listing of resources and discussion on the relation of trust and conflict processes; search “trust” to get a sample of articles on this topic There is wide recognition that trust is important to conflict resolution, and some theoretical assumptions have been made as to how trust can be generated through “respect and recognition.” See Bush & Folger, supra note 23, at 53-62 41 See Jenai Wu & David Laws, Trust and Other-Anxiety in Negotiations: Dynamics Across Boundaries of Self and Culture, 19 Negot J 327 (2003) (describing the need for reflective space where negotiators can come to understand the Other) While these authors describe trust as a condition of the relationship, rather than an intra-psychic condition, they link the production of trust to the psychological traits/capacities of individuals 42 See Roy Lewicki & Edward Tomlinson, Trust and Trust Building, in Beyond Intractability (Guy Burgess & Heidi Burgess eds., 2003), available at http://www2.beyondintractability.org/m/trust_building.jsp (summarizing the assumptions about the concept of “trust” in the negotiation literature) This article posits the presence of different kinds of trust that are established over the course of the development of the relationship However, although the article terminates in a set of recommendations for building trust, these recommendations are not themselves formulated as a sequence Moreover, as trust is formulated as an intra-psychic process in the heads of individuals, the concept cannot be used to characterize a relational process without committing an error in logical typing: the class (“trust”) cannot be represented by the items within the class It is further very interesting to note Bateson’s disdainful discussion of the way that concepts are used to define themselves, creating a recursive definition of sorts that cannot terminate in any legitimate explanation Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology 177-200 (1972) Defining “trust” as both a cause and an effect of relationships that generate trust is a good example of this See id at xxvii (discussing Molière, who asked a medical student “to state the ‘cause and reason’ why opium puts people to sleep.” The candidate triumphantly answered in dog Latin, “because there is in it a dormitive principle (veritus dormitiva)”) The field of negotiation has, in my view, similarly answered the question as to how trust is developed in relationships And once more, I am suggesting that the problem the field has is that it seeks to address a relational process using descriptions of intra-psychic processes But see generally Timothy Bickmore & Justin Cassell, Relational Agents: A Model and Implementation of Building User Trust, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 396 (Mar 31-Apr 5, 2001) (describing trust as a relational process, and offering a set of discrete practices, in conversation/interaction, that contribute to the development of trust) Yet, even this theoretical advance is still in the formative stages and, therefore, has limited applicability to the wide array of negotiations that must be understood, normatively, as relational development 43 See generally Relational Psychoanalysis: The Emergence of a Tradition (Stephen Mitchell & Lewis Aron eds., 1999) © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 20 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 44 Pizer, supra note 9, at 197-99 45 Id at 46 See infra note 111 47 Irwin Z Hoffman, Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process: A Dialectical Constructivist View 179-91 (1998) 48 Id at 231-34 49 Id at 219-44 50 Hoffman, supra note 47, at 142 51 Id at 133-62 52 This team was composed of a group of clinicians and researchers, and their work led to the publication of seminal texts See, e.g., Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas & Don D Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes (1967); Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland & Richard Fisch, Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution (1974) 53 See Daniel Wegner, Ironic Processes of Mental Control, 101 Psychol Rev 34, 34 (1994); Michael Rohrbaugh & Varda Shoham, Brief Therapy Based on Interrupting Ironic Processes: The Palo Alto Model, Clinical Psychol 66, 77 (2001) (noting that Wegner introduced the phrase “ironic processes” in cognitive intra-psychic laboratory tests where subjects’ “attempts to suppress an unwanted thought (e.g., trying not to think of a white bear) often lead to increased thought intrusion”) 54 See Rohrbaugh & Shoham, supra note 53, at 71 (describing the stages of intervention in ironic processes) 55 Id at 77-78 56 Research on the Palo Alto group’s success rates shows an interesting and statistically significant difference between patients who were seen for ten sessions, as opposed to five The latter group had lower rates of success, implying that more time in “brief therapy” was needed somehow the turning point was not reached in most cases, or it did not hold, but it did when patients had ten sessions Also, success was higher for patients who saw more than one therapist, which is a counterintuitive finding, for it implies that turning points are not generated by the quality of the connection with the therapist (as the relational psychoanalyst would claim) See Varda Shoham & Michael J Rohrbaugh, Brief Strategic Couple Therapy, in Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy 5, 5-25 (Alan S Gurman & Neil S Jacobson eds., The Guilford Press ed 2002) 57 See Druckman, supra note 28 (arguing that this is a function of the way that process analysis, as method, seeks to develop causal descriptions by tracing back from outcomes; it is, by definition, retrospective) The Critical Moments seminar participants have largely agreed that turning points can be known retrospectively However, as the group has continued to work on this theme, there are those of us, including myself and Daniel Druckman, for example, who are working on separate projects toward modeling turning points so that they might be identified prospectively as well © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 21 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 58 Harré & van Langenhove, supra note 29, at 359 59 See generally Harré, supra note 29 60 I am basing these features of the conflict narrative on my own practical experience as a consultant and a mediator See Sara Cobb, A Narrative Perspective on Mediation: Toward the Materialization of the “Storytelling” Metaphor, in New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives 48 (Joseph P Folger & Tricia S Jones eds., 1994) 61 Robert H Mnookin et al., Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes 157-66 (2000) (highlighting the social psychological barriers to negotiation These barriers such as “reactive devaluation” and “partisan perceptions” are described as stable features of negotiation, yet they must be overcome, he notes, to reach successful outcomes.) 62 Rohrbaugh & Shoham, supra note 53, at 68 63 Luk van Langenhove & Rom Harré, Introducing Positioning Theory, in Positioning Theory 14, 21-22 (Rom Harré & Luk van Langenhove eds., 1999) 64 Id at 16 65 Langenhove & Harré, supra note 63, at 43-44 66 See generally George A Kelly, A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1963) (noting that attributions are a function of construct systems) A construct is a set of oppositional terms whose meaning is derived from the opposition itself Kelly pointed out that these oppositions, or construct systems, are not necessarily based on linguistic opposites, but rather on oppositions that are used by speakers Id at 105-10 So while the linguistic opposite of “kind” is “unkind,” a particular speaker, or a group, or even a culture, may use “lazy” as the opposite of “kind.” In this way, positions are socially constructed on the basis of constructs that are not linguistic opposites, but pragmatic opposites that are indigenous to that setting For this reason, it is imperative to work, as a negotiator or mediator, to grasp the construct system in use by Others, so as to ascertain the interpretative framework within which positions are attributed to Self/Other Id at 131-35 67 See generally Sara Cobb, “Theories of Responsibility”: The Social Construction of Intentions in Mediation, 18 Discourse Processes 165 (1994) 68 See Cobb, supra note 67, at 165-86 See generally Rom Harré & Peter Stearns, Discursive Psychology in Practice (1995) 69 There is no research to date that differentiates the relative importance of the features of the conflict narrative (character roles, plots and themes) We know that relationships matter to the evolution of negotiation See Kathleen L McGinn, For Better or Worse: How Relationships Affect Negotiation, Negotiation, No 11, Nov 2004, at 1-3 This could imply that the character roles are differentially central in the formation of the conflict narrative, and suggest that the other narrative features, plot and moral themes, as in fact in service to character roles However, this would need to be the focus on an empirical investigation I have one such study in the design phase at the time this Article is being revised for publications © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 22 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 70 This is not to say that positioning is an instrumental process, which would imply that (a)folks are mindful of how they are positioned, (b)they are mindful of the consequences of being positioned relative to access to resources, and (c)if they were positively positioned they would automatically have resources conferred upon them While resources would not be conferred without legitimacy, legitimacy does not, in and of itself, structure, organize, or confer resources Experienced negotiators would, if asked, be easily able to distinguish positive from negative positions, and they would be able to narrate the consequences of those positions This is because positions are a function of speech acts, which are, in and of themselves, a highly patterned activity See Harré & van Langenhove, supra note 29 at 362-64 The predictability of speech act patterns reveals the practical know how of people engaged in interaction If Harré is correct in his assumption that positions are constructed in interaction, then it follows that positions are also patterned activity 71 Note that “legitimacy” is not equivalent to “recognition” or “affirmation,” both of which are positive psychological experiences However, “legitimacy” is fundamentally a social, not a psychological, attribute, as my student Anas Shallal, an ICAR student, pointed out in a recent class discussion of Harré’s concept of position In this way, it is possible to differentiate “legitimacy” from “face” 72 Perhaps we could define “trust” in terms of the degree to which persons rely on the positive construction of themselves by others This would shift attention away from trust as an attribute of persons to being a feature of the discourse itself 73 Once, in a negotiation with a senior colleague over the content of some course materials that I was preparing and delivering to students in his course, I complained to him (via e-mail) that I did not feel that he was listening to me; I had repeatedly given my reasons for the materials I had proposed and written, and he had continually asked me to make significant changes in those materials He responded to my complaint by saying that I sounded “like [his] teenage daughter having a hissy fit” (via e-mail) From this de-legitimized position, I contemplated telling him that I pitied his daughter, as she, like me, most likely often felt “unheard.” But instead I held my tongue, made the changes he requested, and apologized when next I saw him for my complaint, reaffirming and deferring to my colleague’s seniority I am aware, however, that this move on my part did nothing to constitute a legitimate position for me Once de-legitimized, it is very difficult to restructure one’s position from within a negotiation, particularly if the de-legitimizing party does not elaborate a new, more positive position for the de-legitimized party It would have been possible, in this case, for the senior colleague (a)to indicate, with a twinkle, that he had behaved like a bully and compliment me for managing to stand up to him for even a short while, or (b)to note that my abject apology indicated wisdom on my part that was clearly beyond that of a teenager and ask me to give lessons to his daughter Either way, we both would have laughed, and I would have had a better position in discourse as well as an improved relationship with him 74 See Bateson, supra note 42, at 201-27 (arguing that each communicative act was a proposal for a particular relationship; in responding to that act, persons accept, reject or modify the proposal) I would further argue that each proposal is housed within a narrative structure that makes sense of the proposal, providing context 75 Note that even when there is no seeming reaction to a proposal, such as in the case of imperviousness, there is still a response to a proposed position set, even if that response is to treat the proposal as if it does not exist See Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson, supra note 52, at 91-93, for a discussion of the role of imperviousness in the communication process, which the authors use to support their claim about the impossibility of not communicating In my view, terrorists’ acts are interactional responses to imperviousness It could be argued that terrorism is the interactional response to prolonged imperviousness See generally Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985) In my view, the West has been impervious to the position set proposed by fundamentalist Muslim groups in that the West has refused to enter into a negotiation over positioning Some have argued that the war on Iraq was carried out to occupy the country in order to reduce the need for the presence of U.S troops on Saudi soil, which fundamentalist Muslim groups have decried If that is the case, it would be imperative for the United States to respond to the position created by these groups simply taking the troops off the soil does not constitute a response to the position, for the United States would not have connected the withdrawal of troops to the groups’ proposed positions Refusing to negotiate (imperviousness) is itself a strong and potentially lethal response to proposed positions, disqualifying the Other not at the level of the content of the proposal, but at the level of having the legitimacy to have a proposal in the first place Terrorism begins in the space where the right to propose positions is denied © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 23 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 76 See Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson, supra note 52, at 54-59 (presenting research on the problem of “punctuation” in communication processes: interactants routinely externalize the cause of their own actions in some initial condition defined as the particular act of an Other) 77 See Bronwyn Davies & Rom Harré, Positioning and Personhood, in Positioning Theory, supra note 63, at 32-52 (arguing that differentiation of “role” with “position” posits that position is inherently a reflection on the moral location of a character in a story, where “role” may address participation in a given plot without signaling the moral dimensions of that participation) 78 Here I am referring to “contain” not only as to “hold within” but also in the sense of “restricting.” 79 These features are derived from the research done by Sluzki on “better-formed stories” in therapeutic settings See generally Sluzki, supra note 30 In a review of family therapy cases, he argues that these features offer a normative roadmap for moving from problematic to “better” stories in the course of treatment This normative view of narrative flies in the face of the postmodern cannon on narrative theory and practice that argues for the validity of all narratives That relativistic position not only is naïve, in that it presumes that narratives are somehow not themselves action, but it also stalls out the possibility of a narrative approach to ethical practice in conflict resolution 80 For a discussion of Pareto optimality, see James Sebenius, Negotiation Analysis: A Characterization and Review, 38 Mgmt Sci 18, 18-38 (1992) and Ariel Rubinstein, On the Interpretation of Two Theoretical Models of Bargaining, in Barriers to Conflict Resolution 120, 120-30 (Kenneth Arrow & Robert H Mnookin et al eds., 1995) 81 See William Wilmot, Dyadic Communication: A Transactional Perspective 122-23 (1975) 82 To date, the cases that provide the basis of this analysis are from therapy and mediation practices Additionally, this analysis has not been systematic, so the “research” is in an incipient stage I look forward to modeling interaction using the lens of the “better formed” narrative in agent-based simulations This project is in its early phase 83 I am here describing turning points that generate positive relational evolution; however, relational devolution is also generated by turning points that elaborated increasing negative and polarized character roles, increasing the linearity of the plot and reducing the complexity of the plot and themes (reversing the turning points listed above) 84 This would be easy to test; parties to a conflict should be more likely to contest alterations in plot or values that threaten the legitimacy of their positions in discourse Even though there are plot alterations that could generate alterations in positions, there are likely many ways to alter plot and/or themes without proposing alterations which threaten the legitimacy of the speaker If that is the case, then we could presume that the more important alterations are those that threaten legitimacy Thus, the dimensions of narrative change are not equivalent the role/position is more critical to interaction/relationship than plot and themes, even though they are systemically inter-related 85 See van Langenhove & Harré, supra note 63, at 14-31 86 It could be argued that peace accords that not re-position parties as legitimate are less likely to be sustainable This is a hypothesis that would need to be researched via the examination of the language of any given peace accord New positions in discourse would, of course, also need to be reproduced in multiple institutions as well, in order to keep it “alive” and not just something that existed on paper in an accord © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 24 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 87 W Barnett Pearce & Vernon E Cronen, Communication, Action, and Meaning: The Creation of Social Realities 311-12 (1980) 88 While I have no empirical evidence to support this claim beyond my practice and life experience, it remains an interesting postulate that could prove useful in modeling a sequence of turning points that contribute to narrative and relational evolution 89 See Cobb, supra note 67, at 178 90 Claudia Liebler & Cynthia Sampson, Appreciative Inquiry in Peacebuilding: Imaging the Possible, in Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding: A Resource for Innovators 55, 56-61 (Cynthia Sampson et al eds., 2003) 91 For good reviews of this literature, see generally Putnam & Holmer, supra note 8, and Gray, supra note 23 92 See Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, supra note 52, at 194-211 93 David Laws & Martin Rein, Reframing Practice, in Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society 172, 203 (Maarten A Hajer & Hendrick Wagenaar eds., 2003) 94 See Victor W Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure 125-30 (1969) 95 See Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World 27-46 (1991) 96 See Marvin Scott & Stanford Lyman, Accounts, 33 Am Soc Rev 46, 58-61 (1968) (discussing the role of accounts in the management of identity) 97 See Laws & Rein’s discussion of this process within negotiation, supra note 93, at 201-03 This process enables us to see how new frames not emerge out of the blue, but rather are constructed in relation to existing frames Here I am explicitly proposing that “shingling,” which has been described by Laws & Rein relative to the reframing process, can also be used to describe repositioning processes Please note that a frame is not necessarily equivalent to a position in discourse Because a frame can be any interpretative scaffold for giving meaning to something, it is broader than a “position.” 98 See R.D Laing et al., Interpersonal Perception: A Theory and Method of Research 3-34 (1966) and Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, supra note 52, at 52, for descriptions of how each communicative act is essentially a proposal that contains information as to how I see myself, how I see you, and how I see you seeing me This is very different than the notion of “proposal” as an offering of a solution set that is used in the field of negotiation 99 For an excellent review of the literature on irony, see generally Clift, supra note 31 She notes that traditional perspectives describe irony as being the resonance between the said and the unsaid, or as being a proposition which simultaneously denies itself However, she then goes on to review alternative perspectives, such as irony as “echo” or irony as “frame.” Id at 533 For a deeper understanding of the evolution of the notion of irony in modern and postmodern literary criticism, I refer you to her review © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 25 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 100 Id at 533 Clift critiques those that conceptualize irony as an “utterance.” She notes that irony, as performance, depends on the sequential structure of conversations, as well as on the rules/norms within any given discursive community Thus, the example I offer, while it does not display the actual talk, does describe the unfolding of the interaction over time, with all sorts of embedded rules/norms displayed This is one way of noting that ironic performance depends heavily on cultural resources See Linda Hutcheon, Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony 89-115 (1994) (describing the role of “discursive communities” in the production of irony) 101 Humor may indeed be important to negotiations in that it may break the tension See John Forester, Responding to Critical Moments with Humor, Recognition, and Hope, 20 Negot J 221 (2004) 102 This was not a construction that I said to him However, at the beginning of our interaction, as I became more insistent with him and as he continually refused to give me information, I did indeed begin to see him as a “stone-waller.” I saw him as someone who was recalcitrant, who did not want to give me information because giving me a fixed amount would leave him with fewer options available for juggling the space demands of multiple university programs So even though I never said this to him, I was clearly interacting with him on the basis of my construction of him 103 One reviewer for this Article commented that this vignette exemplifies passive aggressive behavior on my part I assume this person meant that I was being aggressive, but not overtly so I agree at one level: the ironic move constructs a position for Self and Other that is very difficult to contest To the extent that the Other would want me to frame myself as rigid, he is then locked in, at some level, to being framed as “flexible.” And to the extent that I have defined myself as in need of therapy, it remains as a position in discourse from which I can complain without complaining While it would have been possible for the contractor to tell me, “Look lady, don’t get cute with me,” I could have, in turn, either apologized and asked him if he needed evidence from me that I was serious, such as an expression of anger, a formal complaint, or a series of meetings with those involved, all of which would operate at the level of speech acts as “threats.” I would not threaten this fellow given the likely possibility that this would worsen the relationship Rather, I would have defended myself, providing a rationale for why I was defining myself as rigid, and that defense would have included an account of my ignorance and lack of experience in moving an academic program I would then suggest that we meet regularly, so that I could at least get educated about the process If he refused, I would have defined myself as one of those pesky “clients” that drive contractors crazy with their questions and recommend that we meet to get the scope of the project defined, so I could relax a little It is very difficult to second-guess an interactional sequence, but I played this one out a bit to show that even in a case in which the contractor would have protested the ironic positions I constructed for us, I would have still followed the logic of creating a position in the discourse for myself that displayed the shadow side of my legitimacy The example scenario shows that indeed, this is a very powerful move However, that it is powerful in no way implies that it is unethical We cannot help but position Self and Other in the course of interaction I will take up the ethics of ironic practice in the last Part of the Article 104 See Clift, supra note 31, at 533 105 Id at 545 106 Hutcheon, supra note 100, at 37-56 107 Clift, supra note 31, at 546 108 Hutcheon, supra note 100, at 37-43 I have been impressed by Barshefsky’s account of her negotiation with China on intellectual property protection When confronted with an ultimatum from her Chinese negotiator, she responded with irony, noting that he likely could not have meant what he said, because if he meant it she would need to break off the negotiations This is an example of how, on one level, Barschefsky gave an ultimatum (“I will break ofs negotiations if you give me an ultimatum”), while, on another level, by framing it as a hypothetical, she denied giving that ultimatum See James Sebenius & Rebecca Hulse, Charlene © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 26 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L Barshefsky (B), Harv Bus School, Case Study No 9-801-421 (2001) 109 Hutcheon, supra note 100, at 29 110 Id at 54-55 111 Hutcheon cites Aristotle’s concern that irony might indeed both reflect anger as well as cause it She further notes that Aristotle was concerned that the ironist was perhaps dangerous, for, given the nature of irony, it was impossible to tell how close any ironist was to dangerous action or violence Id at 42 While I agree that this evaluative “edge” of irony can be used in a way that is destructive to relationships, I am presuming that this edge can also be used, as it is described, to create affiliation as well See id at 47 (listing the multiple functions that irony can perform) 112 Clift, supra note 31, at 540-41 113 The Chatham House Rule is as follows: “When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participants, may be revealed The Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Chatham House Rule, available at http://www.riia.org/index.php?id=14 (last visited, Dec 12, 2005) This is an excellent example of an ironic performance, as all participants in a Chatham House process know they have purposive roles but will pretend, for the duration of the workshop, that they not Of course, in that process they come to understand the way that their role or the absence of that role constrained or enabled them to generate alternatives Being explicitly out of role, while implicitly retaining the role, exemplifies being both “in and outside” the frame The ironic nature of the process, generated by the Chatham House Rule, makes the “shift in footing” possible 114 Clift, supra note 31, at 539 115 See Hutcheon, supra note 100, at 44-56 From this perspective, exaggeration, tied to a negative position, is equivalent to sarcasm However, unlike sarcasm, which creates only exclusion, ironic performance has the potential to build affiliation and contribute to relational development Also, the speaker/creator of the sarcastic performance disappears as the creator of the evaluative frame Disconnected from its creator, sarcasm’s evaluative edge masquerades as a universal judgment, without a person responsible for its creation For an excellent example of sarcasm, see generally Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works 492, 492-99 (Angus Ross & David Wolley eds., 2003) 116 Elsewhere, I have written on the production of liminal space in the process of mediation See generally Sara Cobb, Liminal Spaces in the Negotiation Process: Crossing Relational and Interpretative Thresholds in a Family Business Negotiation (2001) (unpublished manuscript, on file with Harvard Negotiation Law Review) Following van Gennep, I noted that this “between” space is created via the inversion or reversal of social roles See generally Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Monika Vizedom & Gabrielle Chaffee trans., 1960) This convinced me that irony itself is generative of liminal space a place where we are no longer who we were, and not yet who we are to become 117 Cobb, supra note 116, at 19-20 118 Again, examples of reversal, tied to a negative position for Others can dissolve into simple sarcasm characterizing the Palestinian suicide bombers as “peace-loving” accentuates the negative evaluative edge, and, again, increases exclusion and reduces affiliation © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 27 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 119 See generally Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (1974); Alan Wilde, Horizons of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Ironic Imagination (1987); Katharina Barbe, Irony in Context (1995) 120 See generally Burke, supra note 1; Clift, supra note 31 121 Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 208 (1984) 122 Clift, supra note 31, at 523 123 The content of a given construct is dependent on the local conditions people, institutions, and culture Thus, there is no way to pre-determine what the construct would be The content of a given construct emerges out of these local conditions and is more-orless idiosyncratic to a given conflict However, there are certainly recurring (mythic) patterns within a culture, so within the United States we may all be able to predict how others might construct the underbelly of the notion “patriot,” i.e., the kind of blind support for country that is impatient with dissent or multiple perspectives and impatient with democratic process Now there is an irony 124 Note also that “forgetting to smell the roses” is a soft and light underbelly; this is a good example of how the exposure of the underbelly can be done in a way that does not entirely threaten the legitimacy of the speaker 125 See Clift, supra note 31, at 533 126 This paper was written, and this case developed, prior to the election, which brought Hamas to political power However, while this paper was going to print, Hamas was elected, and I recognize that the example, at this point, does not address the emerging complexities 127 Negative spirals have their own thresholds that are not known to parties until they are crossed For example, the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif that touched off the second Intifada could not have been predicted; so at some level, parties to conflict proceed as if the rules of the game will not change as the negative spiral continues Yet the rules change, and things get worse 128 Here I am referencing the scenario-building process generally, using Schwartz’s book title See Schwartz, supra note 95, at 100-17 (describing the use of scenario-planning for creating the “long view”) 129 These explorations might take the form of conversations at a summit meeting or, preferably, a chain of rituals that engaged parties from both sides within different levels of civil and religious groups Gopin has written about the importance of symbolic rituals for supporting the emergence of new ways of interacting See generally Marc Gopin, Holy War, Holy Peace (2002) It would also be the case that these rituals and conversations would need to be widely disseminated through the media to become a part of the public discourse on either side 130 See Frank Masterpasqua & Phyllis Perna, The Psychological Meaning of Chaos: Translating Theory Into Practice 203-12 (1997) See also Robert Schehr & Dragan Milovanovic, Conflict Mediation and the Postmodern: Chaos, Catastrophe, and Psychoanalytic Semiotics, 26 Soc Just 208, 216-17 (1999) 131 See generally Jean Piaget, The Equilibrium of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development (1985) © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 28 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 132 See Stephen W Littlejohn & Karen A Foss, Theories of Human Communication 188-91 (1983) (describing Duck’s theory of relational dissolution, supra note 38) 133 Aristotle, On Poetics (Seth Benardete & Michael Davis trans., St Augustine’s Press 2002) 134 Fisher, Ury & Patton, supra note 24 135 I not intend to imply that negotiation experts such as Fisher, Ury, and Patton have no ethical frameworks to evaluate their actions These scholars are extremely ethical as persons in both personal and professional domains I am rather trying to distinguish theories that are prescriptive on the basis of a pragmatics from theories that offer both a pragmatic and an ethical basis for prescription 136 See Forester, supra note 10, at 115-45 137 See Cobb, supra note 11, at 9-16 138 See Jenny Berriens & Christopher Winship, Should We Have Faith in Churches? The Ten Point Coalition’s Effect on Boston’s Youth Violence, in Guns, Crime and Punishment in America 222 (Bernard E Harcourt ed., 2003); John Burton, Violence Explained: The Sources of Conflict, Violence and Crime and their Prevention 32-40 (1997); Vamik Volkan, Blood Lines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism, 202-28 (1997) 139 See Cobb, supra note 30, at 303-07 140 See Liebler & Sampson, supra note 90, at 55-79 141 See Wheeler & Morris, supra note 7, at 8-9; Stone et al., supra note 14, at 168-71 See generally Leonard L Riskin, The Contemplative Lawyer: On the Potential Contributions of Mindfulness Meditation to Law Students, Lawyers, and Their Clients, Harv Negot L Rev (2002) 142 See Forester, supra note 10, at 141-53; Stone et al., supra note 14, at 129-234; Fisher, Ury & Patton, supra note 24, at 10-11 143 See generally Riskin, supra note 141 144 See Cobb, supra note 30, at 303-06 145 See Michel Foucault, The Discourse on Language, in The Archeology of Knowledge, supra note 12, at 215-37 146 See Chris Mitchell, Asymmetry and Strategies of Regional Conflict Resolution, in Cooperative Security: Reducing Third World Wars 25, 25 (William Zartman & Victor Kremenyuk eds., 1995) © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 29 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 147 Forester, supra note 10; Habermas, supra note 12 148 Following Druckman, supra note 5, a “turning point” signals a change in the trajectory of the action Thus, it forecasts interest in and attention to the “from/to” aspect of that action Even though a “point” also refers to a discrete moment, as does the language of “critical moment,” it has the advantage of attending to the change in the directionality of action Yet, in contrast to Druckman, I am not “connecting the dots” between turning points to outcomes, but rather I am working out a way to attempt to describe turning points in the context of their role in positioning in discourse Id at 520-21 149 See Paul A Chilton, Metaphor, Euphemism and the Militarizarization of Language, 10 Current Res on Peace and Violence (1987) Using “critical discourse moments” (CDM’s), which he argues reflect the process of managing “face,” (drawing on Ervin Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (1974) and Penelope Brown & Sarah Levinson, Universals in Language Use: Politeness Phenomena, in Questions and Politeness: Strategies (Esther Goody ed., 1978) (describing “politeness theory”)), Chilton works to define moments that are critical to face in the interaction Chilton, supra at 12 In my doctoral dissertation research, I used his concept of CDM’s to perform an analysis of a therapy session, tracking the impact of the therapist’s reframing on the evolution of the interaction I am now using a very different notion of critical discourse moment, as I am no longer relying on “face” as the explanation for social interaction Sara Cobb, Toward a Hegemonic Analysis of Discourse: The Concept of Power in Family Therapy (1988) (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) (on file with author) 150 As a practitioner, I have almost never seen a party de-legitimize Self negative positions are always Other-oriented However, as a therapist, I frequently had clients negatively position Self From this perspective, therapists, facilitators, mediators, and change consultants are all professionally engaged in legitimizing people who, from within a given context, cannot manage to transform their negative position Kolb has made this point to me, arguing that negotiation is different from third-party processes, due to the difficulty that negotiators have in altering their positions from within I have disagreed with her, as I think there are rhetorical strategies that can be used to shift positions in discourse form “within,” and further, and more importantly, there is little distinction between “in” and “out.” Mediators who we think are “out” are actually “in,” and negotiators who are “in” can also be “out.” See Kolb and Williams’s discussion of how to gain perspective on one’s own position in a negotiation by “suspend[ing] belief or at least resist[ing] drawing premature conclusions about the situation or your counterpart’s motivations.” Kolb & Williams, supra note 11, at 144 In my view, Kolb and Williams are advocating a set of practices that are intended to help women, from within, re-negotiate their positions in the discourse 151 While it is certainly the case that parties are legitimized on a regular basis by members of their personal and professional network, conflicts often escalate precisely because parties reciprocally de-legitimize each other However, the legitimacy that is conferred in many other contexts of a party’s life does not cancel out or dilute the negative impact of the de-legitimacy proposed by Others during a negotiation I know of no research that relates the de-legitimacy constructed by Others for speakers in a negotiation to the attempts by that de-legitimized person to mitigate that social construction by being elaborated as “legitimate” by persons in their network It would be very interesting to study this connection by asking parties engaged in intractable conflicts with whom they speak (and how often they so) that provides for them an antidote to the de-legitimizing interaction within the context of the conflict This would lend a social network lens to the analysis of conflict and conflict resolution dynamics 152 See Richard Buttny, Blame-Accounts Sequences in Therapy: The Negotiation of Relational Meanings, 78 Semiotica, 219-47 (1990), for a discussion of “adjancy pairs” in speech act sequences See also Kolb, supra note 13 (elaborating on her model of “moves and turns,” offering a set of strategies for both identifying and managing critical moments in negotiation) 153 Much of this research has focused on trust-building and coexistence but there is equal emphasis on the other side, i.e., “hurting stalemates” (see Eric Brahm, Hurting Stalemate Stage, in Beyond Intractability (Guy Burgess & Heidi Burgess eds., 2003), available at http:// www.beyondintractability.org/essay/stalemate (last visited Feb 9, 2006)); “impasse” (see Lawrence Susskind & Jeffrey Cruikshank, Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes 3-10 (1987)); and the conditions that favor violence (see Richard E Rubenstein, Alchemists of Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern World 49-64 © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 30 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L (1987)) For research that focuses on the psychological dimensions of relational development in negotiation, see generally Wu & Laws, supra note 41; Daniel L Shapiro, Negotiating Emotions, 20 Conflict Resol 67, 67-82 (2002) and Stone et al., supra note 14 None of this work has offered a sequence with a logic for the movement between stages in that sequence (beyond the negotiation or mediation process itself) 154 A notable exception to this would be the research on framing in conflict dynamics For a review of the framing literature, see papers submitted to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Conference (Jan 1998), http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/hewlett/Conf/framing.htm (last visited Nov 11, 2005) However, one of the central problems of the framing research is that it does not theorize the process of the evolution of frames So we know that frames evolve, but we know less about how reframing functions See Laws & Rein, supra note 93, at 180-201 155 See Joann Keyton & Faye L Smith, A Comparative Empirical Analysis of Theoretical Formulations of Distrust, Paper submitted to the International Association of Conflict Management, 16th Annual Conference (June 15-18, 2003), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=399500 This research uses content analysis to make inferences about trust/distrust, drawing on a list of words that are indicators of trust/distrust While this research may illuminate the nature of the descriptions people use about their feelings of trust and distrust, it does not track the development of those concepts in the interaction, as this research was based on survey data This is a good example of the empirical research done on trust and illuminates the methodological limits of content analysis 156 The Association for Conflict Resolution advances, under the name of “neutrality,” an ethics for mediation, which rests on positivist assumptions that neutrality is possible and the observer (third party) can participate, impacting process without impacting content Janet Rifkin, myself, and others (such as Beth Roy) have critiqued the concept of “neutrality.” See Sara Cobb & Janet Rifkin, Practice and Paradox: Deconstructing Neutrality in Mediation, 16 Law & Soc Inquiry 35, 46-51 (1991) ; Beith Roy, Bitters in the Honey: Tales of Hope and Disappointment Across Divides of Race and Time 10-11 (1999) Therefore, although there is an ethical code for practitioners, I would argue that it is not sufficiently analytic to provide guidance for mediators engaged in the transformation of problems and the positive evolution of relationships While the stages of the mediation process, like the stages prescribed in a negotiation process, often appear to foster the kind of transformation that Bush and Folger describe, there is no theory for the evolution of relationships, or turning points, that foster that evolution See Bush & Folger, supra note 23, at 55 (describing their model of relational evolution and devolution) Even though they offer an interesting general model, they avoid offering a set of sequenced prescriptions precisely because they see these as contrary to the natural evolution of relationships They are committed to allowing the parties to find their way Thus, it is precisely, and (perhaps) paradoxically, the absence of a prescribed sequence that is itself their prescription See id at 221 (defining “proactive” mediation) 157 Forester’s model is developmental in a very pragmatic way as well He has described the planning process, and offers a normative model both in the ethical as well as in the developmental dimensions John Forester, Rationality, Dialogue and Learning: What Community and Environmental Mediators Can Teach Us About the Practice of Civil Society, in Cities for Citizens: Planning and the Rise of Civil Society in the Global Age 213-25 (Mike Douglas & John Friedman eds., 1998) 158 Forester, supra note 10, at 203-12 159 See Cobb & Rifkin, supra note 156, at 52-60 160 Kolb & Williams, supra note 11, at 15-38 161 Habermas, supra note 12, at 374-403 This theory has been used by John Forester to design deliberative processes that foster emancipation through participation See Forester, supra note 10, particularly the chapter which deals with what he calls “critical pragmatism” (“On Not Leaving Your Pain at the Door: Political Deliberation, Critical Pragmatism, and Traumatic Histories”) Id at 203-20 © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 31 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 162 See Loet Leydesdorff, Luhmann, Habermas, and the Theory of Communication, 17 Sys Res & Behav Sci 273, 280 (2000) (critiquing Habermas) 163 See David J Krieger, Communication Theory and Interreligious Dialogue, 30 J Ecumenical Stud 331, 331-52 (1993), for a fascinating description of the relationship between discourse and inter-religious dialogue, noting that this postmodern world, which hosts multiple worldviews, does not provide the ground for dialogue, collective action, or community He proposes three stages to the dialogue process: proclamation, argumentation, and disclosure and, in so doing, provides an interesting staged model for identifying modes of discourse that contribute to the development of community 164 Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 36-40 (1985) 165 Id at 39 166 See generally Cobb, supra note 11, for a discussion of how recognizing the Other is not at all similar to witnessing the Other The former, as Oliver notes, involves the exchange of recognition for similarity, while the latter, witnessing, involves the active engagement with the Other in the social construction of their legitimacy Kelly Oliver, Beyond Recognition: Witnessing Ethics, 33 Phil Today 31, 41 (2000) See also Sheila McNamee & Kenneth J Gergen, Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue 3-28 (1999), for an excellent conceptualization of “responsibility” that parties have in relations with their Others, detailing the nature of the conversations that enhance the possibility that parties in conflict can come to respect the Other 167 See generally Vivienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered (1996); Mary J Belenky et al., Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (1997) 168 Oliver, supra note 166, at 33 169 Id at 33-34 170 Id at 39 171 Id 172 See Allen Feldman, Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland 7-9 (1991) for a discussion of the way that discourse or meaning is an “embodied transcript.” 173 Booth has argued that irony has a set of stable features, one of which is that it is intentional; it is a rhetorical practice that involves speakers indirectly contradicting themselves Thus, irony can bee seen as a strategic practice Booth, supra note 119, at 174 Certainly there are forms of ironic practice that are not inclusive See id at 44 Irony could certainly be used to disqualify and delegitimize However, harnessed to the production of legitimacy for speakers, it is a rhetorical strategy for increasing relational knowledge and, in that way, contributes to relational development © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 32 WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011 For Educational Use Only A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TOTURNING POINTS: , 11 Harv Negot L 175 See Sara Cobb & Angela Wasunna, Humanizing Human Rights: The Voice of the Perpetrator in Truth Commissions 48-50 (2000) (unpublished manuscript, presented at the Law & Society Association, Miami, FL) (on file with author) 176 See Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness 130-31 (2003) 177 Heinz von Foerster, On Constructing a Reality, in Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know 60 (Paul Watzlawick ed., 1984) End of Document © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works © 2011 Thomson Reuters No claim to original U.S Government Works 33 ... development Also, the speaker/creator of the sarcastic performance disappears as the creator of the evaluative frame Disconnected from its creator, sarcasm’s evaluative edge masquerades as a universal... past, presentn and futures; and (4) Moral frameworks that are complex, rather than dualistic and polarized The “better-formed” story generates interactional patterns that are collaborative and... it has no future, at times no past Finally, *161 it provides an evaluative schema based on binary and polarized moral values, and it is often the case that the moral themes are deeply resonant