Beyond impasse: Addressing sacred values in international political negotiations

Abstract

International political negotiations that include sacred values often fall apart or, when concluded, prove unsustainable. Why? What can be done to make these settlements more sustainable? This chapter reviews the literature on sacred values and sacred rhetoric, focusing on why sacred values cannot be mixed with material trade-offs, how regular values become sacred, what we know about defusing them, and their immutability. It then applies new research to previous proposals for managing sacred values within international negotiations. Though sacred values are immutable, once acknowledged, they can be flexibly managed via tactics such as reframing, repositioning, and reprioritizing. Acknowledging and/or recognizing the other's sacred values, however, is often a challenge. Thus, we suggest the need for SV negotiator training and propose a dual (ingroup and intergroup), process-based platform that negotiators can use to prepare parties for negotiations involving SVs. Lastly, we identify critical areas for future research.