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What’s in a Frame?
Marcia Caton Campbell & Jayne Seminare Docherty*
Editors’ Note: How you conceive what your negotiation is all about, and how the other side perceives it, can be a complete mismatch resulting in mutual frustration. Here, Caton Campbell and Docherty address the all-important question of framing, providing a set of ways to think through your assumptions and those of the other side. You may want to read this chapter in close conjunction with those by Heen & Stone (Vol. 1, Ch. 26) and Coleman et al (Vol. 2, Chs. 83-85.)
This chapter is republished from the same editors’ Negotiator’s Fieldbook (American Bar Assoc. 2006). We appreciate the ABA’s courtesy in agreeing to this republication. Although this chapter was not updated for the NDR, we believe it continues to be a unique and valuable resource. Some formatting has been updated; the text of the chapter and the authors’ bios are unaltered.
In most large-scale multi-party disputes, such as those characteristic of public policy and environmental conflicts, third-party intervenors make detailed conflict assessments before beginning facilitated or mediated processes.[1] Fundamental to these assessments is identifying and unpacking the multiple frames disputants hold, to get a clearer picture of the conflict’s drivers.[2] Frames are perceptions that the parties hold about what defines the conflict, who is involved in it, how issues are presented, what the expected outcomes might be, and how outcomes will be reached and evaluated.[3] Frames structure disputants’ conceptions of the conflict and exert profound influences on their behavior, strategizing, and choice of negotiating tactics. Frames can be malleable, although some are essentially immutable.[4] At times, disputants will cling to particular conflict frames that stymie negotiations and push conflicts into intractability. Thus, if left unexamined, frames can limit the range of possible solutions the disputing parties can envision.
This essay presents an entrenched, large-scale, multi-party conflict as the basis for a brief discussion of frames and framing dynamics. Its focus is on macro-level frames that determine the parties’ approach to the conflict, including their perceptions of negotiation as a conflict resolution process, rather than on micro-level moves and countermoves among the parties while they are negotiating. Macro-level conflict frames structure the possibilities for resolution while micro-level frames shape the nature of party interactions at the table. Macro-level frames are important tools for understanding the long-term, strategic negotiation goals of a party, which may or may not be identical to the party’s tactical goals in the negotiation itself.[5] In some cases, reframing can enhance the prospects for negotiation or conflict transformation, leading to resolution; however, in others, reframing is less plausible.[6] Although empirical research on multi-party dispute framing is a relatively recent development, frame analysis has quickly become a central part of the conflict assessment pedagogical canon and the public sector dispute resolver’s tool kit. Frame analysis can hold utility for lawyers and other representatives as well, as they seek to understand what motivates the strategic choices made by their clients and by those who sit across the negotiating table.
Highway Through a Monument: A “Road to Nowhere”?[7]
In the desert Southwest stretches a 17-mile-long mesa of black volcanic rocks covered with over 15,000 ancient carvings, some of which may date back 2,000 years or more. This boulder field is a sacred shrine for a Native American tribe, and draws other tribes from across the southwestern states for religious practices. Designated a national monument by the National Park Service over a decade ago, the 7,000-acre park lies directly west of a rapidly growing city of 700,000 residents. This sprawling city is landlocked by a forest to the north, a mountain range and a Native American reservation to the east, and an Air Force Base to the south. The city’s planners project population growth of fifty percent over the next twenty-five years, to more than one million people, and expect most of the residential development accommodating the growth to occur west of the city. Housing prices in subdivisions on the city’s west side are substantially more affordable than in the rest of the metropolitan area, but the monument is a physical barrier between the city and the undeveloped land to the west.
Three years after the monument’s designation, developers and their political allies proposed a six-lane highway extension through the monument to connect future residential development with the existing highway that runs across the northern part of the city. Approximately one-quarter mile of the highway extension would cut through the national monument and require moving about a dozen of the ancient petroglyphs and the loss of 8.5 acres of the park for the highway corridor.[8] ….
For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
Endnotes
*(from The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, ABA 2006)
Marcia Caton Campbell is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds an M.C.R.P. and a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from The Ohio State University, and a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include resolution of intractable land use, environmental and public policy disputes; participatory action research directed toward neighborhood- and community-level social change; community-based development planning; and planning for community food systems.
Jayne Seminare Docherty is associate professor of conflict studies at Eastern Mennonite University. She is the author of Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table and The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times and articles on negotiation and conflict transformation. She has worked with numerous partner organizations to help communities strengthen their capacity to harness the positive energy and minimize the negative consequences of conflict. She is particularly interested in the challenges facing communities and organizations experiencing sudden changes that demand rapid adaptation to new realities, such as a changing population, economic restructuring, changes in laws or regulations, or the losses associated with natural disasters or catastrophic events.
[1] See Lawrence Susskind & Jennifer Thomas-Larmer, Conducting a Conflict Assessment, in The Consensus Building Handbook 99 (Lawrence Susskind, et al. eds., 1999); Marcia Caton Campbell, Intractability in Environmental Disputes: Exploring a Complex Construct, 17 Journal of Planning Literature 12 (2003); see also, Deborah Shmueli, Conflict Assessment, available at http://www.beyondintractability.org/m/conflict_assessment.jsp (Oct. 2003) (last visited Mar. 9, 2006).
[2] “Causes” and “drivers” are two different things. It is risky to claim causality in conflict assessment (though perhaps that is a result of our training in philosophy). “Drivers,” however, calls for “a clearer picture of what drives the conflict,” and it is entirely appropriate to seek these. We can likely identify what is currently driving the conflict at the time of an assessment, which may be entirely different from what any initial “causes” might have been (if the parties can even agree on what those might be—and they have been known to get bogged down in that for a long, long time).
[3] Roy J. Lewicki, et al., Essentials of Negotiation 31 (3d ed. 2001).
[4] Id.; see also, Jayne Seminare Docherty, Learning Lessons From Waco: When Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table (2001); Barbara Gray, Framing of Environmental Disputes, in Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts: Concepts and Cases 23 (Roy J. Lewicki, et al. eds., 2003).
[5] Broadly speaking, parties’ strategic goals relate to their long-term preference related to changing (or not changing) the relationships and power balance among parties in the conflict and remaking (or not remaking) social structures and established systems that govern their interactions. Tactical goals relate to the way parties attempt to shape the negotiation table and exert control over interactions at the table. For a more detailed discussion of strategic versus tactical negotiation, see Jayne Seminare Docherty, The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times 5-15 (2005). For more on the relationship between larger conflict dynamics and negotiation, see also Caton Campbell, supra note 1.
[6] On the potential for reframing, see generally Michael Elliott, et al., Lessons Learned about the Framing and Reframing of Intractable Environmental Conflicts, in Making Sense supra note 4; Linda L. Putnam & Majia Holmer, Framing, Reframing, and Issue Development, in Communication and Negotiation 128 (Linda L. Putnam & Michael E. Roloff, eds. 1992); Gray, supra note 4, at 11-34. On conflict transformation, see E. Franklin Dukes, Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming Community and Governance (1996); Docherty, supra note 4; Heidi Burgess & Guy Burgess, Constructive Confrontation: A Transformative Approach to Intractable Conflicts, 13 Mediation Quarterly 305 (1996).
[7] This case is adapted from James Brooke, Sprawling Albuquerque Hopes to Cut through Monument, N.Y. Times, Jan. 25, 1998, at 12; John McQuaid, Standing Their Ground: Unwelcome Neighbors: How the Poor Bear the Burdens of America’s Pollution, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 24, 2000, at A6; Highway Plan Through N.M. Petroglyph Memorial Rocks Community, Wash. Post, Mar. 23, 1998, at A5.
[8] Brooke, supra note 7.
This chapter is republished from the same editors’ Negotiator’s Fieldbook (American Bar Assoc. 2006). We appreciate the ABA’s courtesy in agreeing to this republication. Although this chapter was not updated for the NDR, we believe it continues to be a unique and valuable resource. Some formatting has been updated; the text of the chapter and the authors’ bios are unaltered.
In most large-scale multi-party disputes, such as those characteristic of public policy and environmental conflicts, third-party intervenors make detailed conflict assessments before beginning facilitated or mediated processes.[1] Fundamental to these assessments is identifying and unpacking the multiple frames disputants hold, to get a clearer picture of the conflict’s drivers.[2] Frames are perceptions that the parties hold about what defines the conflict, who is involved in it, how issues are presented, what the expected outcomes might be, and how outcomes will be reached and evaluated.[3] Frames structure disputants’ conceptions of the conflict and exert profound influences on their behavior, strategizing, and choice of negotiating tactics. Frames can be malleable, although some are essentially immutable.[4] At times, disputants will cling to particular conflict frames that stymie negotiations and push conflicts into intractability. Thus, if left unexamined, frames can limit the range of possible solutions the disputing parties can envision.
This essay presents an entrenched, large-scale, multi-party conflict as the basis for a brief discussion of frames and framing dynamics. Its focus is on macro-level frames that determine the parties’ approach to the conflict, including their perceptions of negotiation as a conflict resolution process, rather than on micro-level moves and countermoves among the parties while they are negotiating. Macro-level conflict frames structure the possibilities for resolution while micro-level frames shape the nature of party interactions at the table. Macro-level frames are important tools for understanding the long-term, strategic negotiation goals of a party, which may or may not be identical to the party’s tactical goals in the negotiation itself.[5] In some cases, reframing can enhance the prospects for negotiation or conflict transformation, leading to resolution; however, in others, reframing is less plausible.[6] Although empirical research on multi-party dispute framing is a relatively recent development, frame analysis has quickly become a central part of the conflict assessment pedagogical canon and the public sector dispute resolver’s tool kit. Frame analysis can hold utility for lawyers and other representatives as well, as they seek to understand what motivates the strategic choices made by their clients and by those who sit across the negotiating table.
Highway Through a Monument: A “Road to Nowhere”?[7]
In the desert Southwest stretches a 17-mile-long mesa of black volcanic rocks covered with over 15,000 ancient carvings, some of which may date back 2,000 years or more. This boulder field is a sacred shrine for a Native American tribe, and draws other tribes from across the southwestern states for religious practices. Designated a national monument by the National Park Service over a decade ago, the 7,000-acre park lies directly west of a rapidly growing city of 700,000 residents. This sprawling city is landlocked by a forest to the north, a mountain range and a Native American reservation to the east, and an Air Force Base to the south. The city’s planners project population growth of fifty percent over the next twenty-five years, to more than one million people, and expect most of the residential development accommodating the growth to occur west of the city. Housing prices in subdivisions on the city’s west side are substantially more affordable than in the rest of the metropolitan area, but the monument is a physical barrier between the city and the undeveloped land to the west.
Three years after the monument’s designation, developers and their political allies proposed a six-lane highway extension through the monument to connect future residential development with the existing highway that runs across the northern part of the city. Approximately one-quarter mile of the highway extension would cut through the national monument and require moving about a dozen of the ancient petroglyphs and the loss of 8.5 acres of the park for the highway corridor.[8] ….
For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
Endnotes
*(from The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, ABA 2006)
Marcia Caton Campbell is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds an M.C.R.P. and a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from The Ohio State University, and a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include resolution of intractable land use, environmental and public policy disputes; participatory action research directed toward neighborhood- and community-level social change; community-based development planning; and planning for community food systems.
Jayne Seminare Docherty is associate professor of conflict studies at Eastern Mennonite University. She is the author of Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table and The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times and articles on negotiation and conflict transformation. She has worked with numerous partner organizations to help communities strengthen their capacity to harness the positive energy and minimize the negative consequences of conflict. She is particularly interested in the challenges facing communities and organizations experiencing sudden changes that demand rapid adaptation to new realities, such as a changing population, economic restructuring, changes in laws or regulations, or the losses associated with natural disasters or catastrophic events.
[1] See Lawrence Susskind & Jennifer Thomas-Larmer, Conducting a Conflict Assessment, in The Consensus Building Handbook 99 (Lawrence Susskind, et al. eds., 1999); Marcia Caton Campbell, Intractability in Environmental Disputes: Exploring a Complex Construct, 17 Journal of Planning Literature 12 (2003); see also, Deborah Shmueli, Conflict Assessment, available at http://www.beyondintractability.org/m/conflict_assessment.jsp (Oct. 2003) (last visited Mar. 9, 2006).
[2] “Causes” and “drivers” are two different things. It is risky to claim causality in conflict assessment (though perhaps that is a result of our training in philosophy). “Drivers,” however, calls for “a clearer picture of what drives the conflict,” and it is entirely appropriate to seek these. We can likely identify what is currently driving the conflict at the time of an assessment, which may be entirely different from what any initial “causes” might have been (if the parties can even agree on what those might be—and they have been known to get bogged down in that for a long, long time).
[3] Roy J. Lewicki, et al., Essentials of Negotiation 31 (3d ed. 2001).
[4] Id.; see also, Jayne Seminare Docherty, Learning Lessons From Waco: When Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table (2001); Barbara Gray, Framing of Environmental Disputes, in Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts: Concepts and Cases 23 (Roy J. Lewicki, et al. eds., 2003).
[5] Broadly speaking, parties’ strategic goals relate to their long-term preference related to changing (or not changing) the relationships and power balance among parties in the conflict and remaking (or not remaking) social structures and established systems that govern their interactions. Tactical goals relate to the way parties attempt to shape the negotiation table and exert control over interactions at the table. For a more detailed discussion of strategic versus tactical negotiation, see Jayne Seminare Docherty, The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times 5-15 (2005). For more on the relationship between larger conflict dynamics and negotiation, see also Caton Campbell, supra note 1.
[6] On the potential for reframing, see generally Michael Elliott, et al., Lessons Learned about the Framing and Reframing of Intractable Environmental Conflicts, in Making Sense supra note 4; Linda L. Putnam & Majia Holmer, Framing, Reframing, and Issue Development, in Communication and Negotiation 128 (Linda L. Putnam & Michael E. Roloff, eds. 1992); Gray, supra note 4, at 11-34. On conflict transformation, see E. Franklin Dukes, Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming Community and Governance (1996); Docherty, supra note 4; Heidi Burgess & Guy Burgess, Constructive Confrontation: A Transformative Approach to Intractable Conflicts, 13 Mediation Quarterly 305 (1996).
[7] This case is adapted from James Brooke, Sprawling Albuquerque Hopes to Cut through Monument, N.Y. Times, Jan. 25, 1998, at 12; John McQuaid, Standing Their Ground: Unwelcome Neighbors: How the Poor Bear the Burdens of America’s Pollution, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 24, 2000, at A6; Highway Plan Through N.M. Petroglyph Memorial Rocks Community, Wash. Post, Mar. 23, 1998, at A5.
[8] Brooke, supra note 7.