International Negociations PDF

European Journal of International
Relations
http://ejt.sagepub.com/
The power of words: Argumentative persuasion in international negotiations

Christian Grobe
European Journal of International Relations 2010 16: 5 originally published online 5
January 2010
DOI: 10.1177/1354066109343989
The online version of this article can be found at:

http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/16/1/5
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Standing Group on International Relations of the ECPR
Additional services and information for European Journal of International Relations can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://ejt.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://ejt.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/16/1/5.refs.html
Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Article
European Journal of
The power of words: International Relations

16(1) 5–29
© The Author(s) 2010
Argumentative persuasion in Reprints and permissions: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
international negotiations DOI: 10.1177/1354066109343989
ejt.sagepub.com
Christian Grobe
McKinsey & Company, Germany
Abstract
Throughout the last two decades international negotiations have been predominantly
analysed from the perspective of rationalist bargaining theory. But most recently, con
structivists have pointed to a different mechanism that may facilitate agreement among
multiple parties: processes of argumentation. Indeed, numerous empirical studies
were successful in showing that words have the power to change the initial bargaining
position of an actor and thereby impact on the outcome of multilateral negotiations.
Rationalists have so far been unable to capture this important role of argumentative talk
within their conceptual framework. Therefore, this article introduces a theory of rational
persuasion, which I call functional persuasion theory. According to this theory argument-
based changes in bargaining positions are entirely belief-driven and are not due to a
reformulation of agents’ preferences, as constructivists hold. The explanatory power of
functional persuasion theory is demonstrated in the empirical part of this article by testing
it against the most prominent constructivist explanations of argumentative persuasion.
Keywords
bargaining, communicative action, game theory, international negotiations, persuasion,
uncertainty
Introduction
Throughout the last two decades international negotiations have been predominantly
analysed from the perspective of rationalist bargaining theory. This research generated
important insights. For example, scholars were successful in showing that even materi-
ally self-interested actors can overcome the large-looming danger of deadlock in mul-
tilateral negotiations by introducing package deals or by offering side payments. But
most recently, constructivists have pointed to a different mechanism that may facilitate
agreement among multiple parties: processes of argumentation. In a joint research project
Corresponding author:
Christian Grobe, McKinsey & Company, Taunustor 2, 60311 Frankfurt, Germany.
E-mail: cgrobe@alumni.princeton.edu

6 European Journal of International Relations 16(1)
on ‘Arguing and Bargaining in Multilateral Negotiations’, Thomas Risse and his collabora-
tors found that argumentative talk is all-pervasive whenever states negotiate an agreement,
whereas pure bargaining is a rarity. And even more interesting, this widespread use of
arguments goes well beyond mere window dressing, as it has a measurable impact on the
negotiation outcome (Ulbert et al., 2004).
So far, it is mainly constructivist scholars who have tried to illuminate the causal
pathways of argumentative persuasion. Drawing upon insights generated by social psy-
chology and the philosophy of language, they have advanced a theory of communicative
action that captures the role of arguments in international negotiations. Authors working in
this tradition, notable conceptual heterogeneity notwithstanding, share the common
assumption that argumentative persuasion, if successful, leads to a change in agents’
preferences. Agents engaging in communicative action do not try to maximize their own
utility functions, as rationalists would assume. Instead, they are ready to succumb to the
better argument, even if such behaviour required reformulating their preferences through-
out the interaction (Checkel, 2001; Deitelhoff, 2009; Risse, 2000).
Rationalists, on the other hand, have long neglected the role of arguments. As a result,
some scholars have questioned the possibility of theoretically conceptualizing the
observed instances of argumentative persuasion within a rationalist framework (Farrell,
2003; Müller, 2004). Thus the first objective of this article is to show how arguments
impact the outcome of multilateral negotiations from a rational choice perspective. In
brief, I argue that rational actors will only be receptive to arguments that transmit new
causal knowledge and thus help alleviate the effects of decision uncertainty.1 In this
view, the frequently observed changes in bargaining positions are belief-driven and are
not due to a reformulation of agents’ preferences, as constructivists hold.
If one accepts this alternative conceptualization of argumentative persuasion in
multilateral negotiations, one is left with the following empirical question: do words
indeed have the power to alter the preferences of states or are changes in bargaining positions
throughout a negotiation simply the result of a rational adaptation to newly emerging
causal knowledge? Finding an answer to this question is the second goal of this article.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. Section one briefly reviews the
existing body of literature on communicative action. In particular, I show that construc-
tivist scholars employ two different notions of the term communicative action. The first
is built on the works of Jürgen Habermas and rests on the assumption that actors are
motivated towards truth seeking, coordinate their interactions by mutual agreement and
never use arguments as a strategic asset. This variant of communicative action is referred
to as authentic persuasion theory. The second is less ambitious and only demands that
agents reformulate their preferences according to new empirical knowledge and moral
standards, without additionally requiring that this change be traced back to a truth-seeking
interaction orientation on part of the agent. Following the literature I refer to this variant
of communicative action as sincere persuasion theory. Next, section two introduces a
rationalist account of persuasion. Drawing upon game theoretical models of strategic
information transmission I show how processes of argumentation lead to forms of functional
persuasion through the diffusion of new cause–effect ideas. Finally, in section three I
analyse two negotiations from the issue area of environmental politics, the CCAMLR
negotiations and the MARPOL negotiations, in order to test the explanatory power of the

Grobe 7
competing persuasion accounts. This analysis reveals that the rationalist account captures
the process and outcome of these two negotiations very well, whereas I do not find evidence
backing either authentic or sincere persuasion theory. The last section concludes and
outlines venues for future research.
Arguments and preference change — persuasion in a

constructivist framework
Communicative action and the concept of authentic persuasion
In the mid-1990s Harald Müller (1994) shook up the German International Relations
community by calling into question the explanatory power of rationalist bargaining
theory. His well-taken critique served as a starting point to argue for an alternative
approach to analysing international negotiations based on the theoretical works of Jürgen
Habermas. In the subsequent years a lively debate ensued in the German international
relations journal Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (henceforth ZIB-debate). At
the core of this debate lay the question whether the concept of strategic rationality
employed by game theorists is sufficient to analyse real-world negotiations or whether it
needs to be complemented by the Habermasian concept of communicative rationality
2
(Keck, 1995; Müller, 1994; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Zangl and Zürn, 1996). In brief, this
alternative concept envisions agents who are motivated towards truth seeking and are
thus characterized by an innate readiness to be persuaded by the better argument
(Verständigungsbereitschaft). Since communicative rationality presupposes that actors
never use arguments in a strategic way to reach their own objectives, this process is
referred to as authentic persuasion (Deitelhoff, 2003; Deitelhoff and Müller, 2005).
In the following, I outline the strengths and weaknesses of the authentic persuasion
model by focusing on its most profound and compelling application to international negotia-
tions, which was recently put forth by Nicole Deitelhoff (2003, 2009).3 For authentic persua-
sion to prevail in the realm of international politics, a number of quite demanding conditions
have to be fulfilled. Most importantly, actors negotiating an agreement need a common
stock of shared background understandings, referred to as a lifeworld, which ameliorates the
risk of dissent by defining the possible range of legitimate arguments. Therefore, the
lifeworld is depicted as the realm of trust in which a reasoned consensus among interacting
states can evolve. Unfortunately, the culture of multilateral diplomacy and international
public law only represents a thin layer of a shared lifeworld in international politics and thus
states are likely to refrain from engaging in communicative action.
Deitelhoff is well aware of this problem and consequently asks: is it possible to increase
the degree of lifeworld certainties, i.e. the level of mutual trust, in order to induce
Habermasian-style communicative action among participants of multilateral negotia-
tions? Her subsequent answer is a resounding ‘yes’. She argues that norm entrepreneurs
such as NGOs or epistemic communities have the power of manipulating the discursive
setting in which negotiations take place. By opening up lifeworld connections, generating
publicity and directly spilling good arguments into the negotiation process, they support
discursive interactions among states (Deitelhoff, 2009: 43–5). For this process to work,
the negotiations have to be embedded in a broader well-institutionalized framework.

Otherwise sufficient lifeworld connections and publicity could not be generated. Both are
dependent on the existence of basic norms and principles that can serve as a universally
accepted point of reference for new arguments. But once these favourable conditions
prevail, states are more likely to engage in Habermasian-style communicative action, for
the change in the discursive setting fosters trust among the participants and outlaws threats
and material promises as illegitimate ways of negotiating. Thereby states are forced to
switch from a strategic mode of interaction (erfolgsorientierte Interaktionseinstellung) to
a truth-seeking one (verständigungsorientierte Interaktionseinstellung).
Deitelhoff illustrates this theoretical argument by analysing the negotiations that led
to the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The negotiation process
was dominated by two opposing coalitions who tried to win support from states that were
as yet undecided. The majority of these states belonged to the group of developing countries.
The first comprised the permanent members of the Security Council (P5). The second
was the so-called ‘like-minded group’, bringing together mostly EU states. In the beginning
the P5 could rally a majority of the developing countries. But in the course of the nego-
tiations, the like-minded states, with the help of different NGOs, managed to shift this
balance. At various regional conferences the like-minded group convinced more and
more states to support an independent ICC. These converting states were mostly developing
countries that lacked ‘the necessary knowledge and expertise to develop a coherent position’
(Deitelhoff, 2003: 25).4
For Deitelhoff this switch is evidence that authentic persuasion took place in the
negotiations of the Rome statute. But her explanation leaves us with both an empirical
and theoretical puzzle (see Grobe, 2007: 81–4). First, it is puzzling that we observe variation
in the receptiveness to arguments among different states. Although all states were
confronted with the same discursive setting, the initial members of the like-minded
group as well as most of the early sceptics of the ICC did not change their bargaining
position throughout the negotiations. This takes me directly to the second point — the
theoretical puzzle. Why did the lack of knowledge about the nature of the problem and
the available options for dealing with it play such an important role in the ICC negotiations?
Should authentic persuasion not be independent of the amount of information states
have? At least, that is what Habermasian-style communicative action implies, for it does
not entail a micro-mechanism that links persuasion to the amount of information actors
have. Rather it stresses the agent’s genuine willingness to reach a mutual agreement with
others even if the problem at hand is well defined and positions are clear-cut (see
Habermas, 1995a: 369–452, 1995b: 441–72, 2004).
Communicative action and the concept of sincere persuasion

The incorporation of uncertainty into models of communicative action is not limited to
the works of Nicole Deitelhoff. The opposite is true: in almost all recent constructivist
studies on persuasion, uncertainty has become an important explanatory factor initiating
a subtle albeit important shift from Habermasian-style communicative action to an alter-
native notion of communicative action whose most prominent exponent is Jeffrey
5
Checkel (2000, 2001). In contrast to authentic persuasion theory, Checkel’s model of
persuasion is rooted in social psychology and has thus accommodated the decisive role

Grobe 9
of uncertainty from the beginning. Rather than focusing on a truth-seeking interaction

orientation on part of the agent, he defines persuasion as ‘a process of interaction that
involves changing attitudes about cause and effect in the absence of overt coercion. It is
thus a mechanism through which preference change may occur’ (Checkel, 2001: 562).
Checkel refers to this process as sincere persuasion and predicts that it is more likely to
occur when actors face novel and uncertain situations, in which they are motivated to
analyse new information. Thereby, he clearly relaxes some demanding features of
Habermasian-style communicative action, as rapidly changing circumstances or situations
of high uncertainty make it easier for actors to reformulate positions they once touted.
Unfortunately, most constructivists do not discriminate carefully enough between these
two different notions of communicative action. The above-mentioned study by Nicole
Deitelhoff is a case in point. Deitelhoff tries to convince us that Habermas’s concept of
communicative action significantly adds to our understanding of the ICC negotiations.
There is nothing heroic about this claim nor is it ex ante implausible, but since the wide-
spread uncertainty among the participants is an important confounding factor that is
correlated with alternative forms of persuasion, it simply cannot be validated in an environ-
ment where actors miss relevant knowledge. As a result, her study suffers from omitted
variable bias, which in turn undercuts the validity of her conclusions.6
Although empirical studies built around the sincere persuasion model do not fall vic-
tim to this criticism, they suffer from some conceptual shortcomings of their own kind.
Andrew Moravcsik (2001) recently showed that Checkel’s constructivist propositions
are quite similar to more traditional rationalist ones. The resulting theoretical indetermi-
nacy, Moravcsik’s argument goes, cannot be countered by process tracing, as Checkel
suggests, because linking reformulated bargaining positions to changes in preferences is
a complex and subtle task that cannot be properly solved by simply interviewing the
involved decision-makers (Moravcsik, 2001: 236). Although this is certainly true, it is no
obvious reason to call into question the raison d’etre of Checkel’s project (Moravcsik,
2001: 234), especially because his method of checking the consistency of words and
deeds is a promising attempt to deal with this difficulty (see Grobe, 2009).7
However, the success of Checkel’s laudable effort to establish his sincere persuasion
model as a mid-range alternative to rationalist accounts of international negotiations is
threatened by yet another conceptual difficulty. Let us go back to the above definition
of sincere persuasion to see this. For Checkel, successful persuasion results in a change
of attitudes about cause–effect relationships, which may be accompanied by a reformulation
of preferences. In this view, belief change becomes a prerequisite for preference change,
whereas it is treated as an alternative to preference change in rationalist accounts. This
conceptual difficulty is exacerbated when Checkel (2001: 575) explicitly counts changes
in beliefs as evidence for his sincere persuasion model, although they may have a
straightforward rationalist explanation.8 Therefore, Moravcsik (2001: 227) is right
when he reminds us that:
… by ignoring viable, even obvious, rationalist explanations of state or social preference change,
constructivists are too easily tempted to use the mere fact of variation in underlying state
preferences, alongside appropriate rhetoric, as decisive evidence for constructivist theory. The
result is a generation of spurious confirmation.

To be sure, this troubling practice is not only a fault of constructivists, but also of scholars
working in the rationalist tradition. Although they have long analysed the role of incomplete
information in the decision-making process of individual actors (Bueno de Mesquita et al.,
1997; Morrow, 1994), they have so far failed to develop an elaborate theoretical framework
that captures the pathways of argumentative persuasion in international negotiations. Therefore
the viable alternative which Moravcsik is pointing our attention to is yet to be pieced together
from the existing body of rational choice theory. The next section takes on this task.
Arguments and belief change — persuasion

in a rationalist framework
From traditional bargaining theory to rhetorical action
Rational choice accounts of multilateral negotiations rely on powerful game theoretical
models, which capture many important aspects of interstate bargains. But the basic
assumptions used in these models make a focus on processes of argumentation theoretically
difficult if not even impossible.
Since all negotiations are dynamic situations, they are most often analysed with the
help of extensive form games. In order to make such an analysis feasible, some demand-
ing requirements have to be met. Most importantly, all players need to hold at least par-
tial knowledge about all possible actions and events that might be of importance for their
pay-off (Katzenstein et al., 1998: 680). That is, all players are assumed to anticipate
everything that might happen throughout the game and thus are never caught completely
off guard throughout an interaction.9 But, in fact, this is often observed when states nego-
tiate an agreement, as processes of argumentation may lead to a better understanding of
the problem at hand or may reveal entirely new policy options for dealing with it.
Therefore Henry Farrell (2003: 283) is right in stating that every time ‘persuasion and
argument have had such effects, one may reasonably claim to have identified a causal
relationship that cannot be understood using standard approaches to bargaining’.10 But
does this apparent shortcoming really require resorting to constructivist approaches in
order to capture the surprise effect of argumentative talk, as Farrell argues further? A
closer look at earlier research suggests a negative answer to this question.
Take, for example, the writings of Frank Schimmelfennig. In his rationalist account
of the negotiations that led to the eastern enlargement of the European Union, states use
all kinds of causal and normative arguments to justify their own bargaining position
(Schimmelfennig, 2001). However, they are not interested in furthering normative goals
per se, but rather try to maximize their material gains. Therefore, they support enlarge-
ment if it pays off and oppose it if the expected costs outweigh the benefits. Schimmelfennig
calls this process of instrumental arguing ‘rhetorical action’ in order to indicate that the
public exchange of arguments between the negotiating parties is mere window dressing.
Rather, states try to persuade the public of the appropriateness of their bargaining position
by making reference to the central ‘European ideas’ of fostering (the reference point of
the supporters) and deepening (the reference point of the opponents) regional cooperation.
But although each state defends its position by making validity claims, none is prepared
to be persuaded by argument.

Grobe 11
Obviously, the rhetorical action model only works when there is at least one other actor
listening who is prepared to change her understanding of the situation in light of the
arguments.11 In Schimmelfennig’s account this other actor is the audience, i.e. the European
public, who takes the role of an arbiter. Once the audience is convinced by a particular
position, the speaker opposing this position is literally left without a choice. Since she has
justified her own bargaining position with an argument that has just been defeated, she
cannot but change her position if she does not want to lose credibility — an asset that is
of utmost importance to any rational actor engaged in iterated bargains. Although
Schimmelfennig incorporates processes of argumentation into his model, he leaves their
central role virtually unexplored. He misses out conceptualizing the key actor that drives
his argument: the European public. Therefore, he is unable to shed light on the pathways of
rational persuasion, as he does not specify a causal mechanism that explains why one set of
arguments is more compelling than another. As a consequence, the actual process of winning
over the European public by argument remains encapsulated in a black box. However, the
key to understanding argument-based persuasion conversions lies hidden in this black
box.12 Opening it would enable rational choice theorists to show which arguments are
persuasive for pay-off maximizing actors at which time — a task to which I now turn.
Functional persuasion theory and the role of new causal knowledge

Any rationalist account of persuasion has to rely on a theory of decision-making under
uncertainty, which allows that processes of argumentation may lead to a better under-
standing of the problem at hand or may reveal entirely new policy options for dealing
with it. To be sure, individual actors might expect in advance that such a persuasion situ-
ation may emerge and they might even succeed in estimating the probability of its occur-
rence correctly, but under no circumstances will they be able to anticipate the content of
arguments and their bearing on the structure of the bargaining game they are playing. In
order to incorporate this surprise effect into a rationalist framework, the traditional
extensive game approach needs to be supplanted by a more flexible one that can capture
the incremental nature of negotiating under uncertainty. In the following, I will outline
such an approach. Specifically, I will piece a negotiation setting characterized by uncer-
tainty into several games of incomplete information, in order to analyse the process of
13
argumentative persuasion from a rationalist perspective.
Whenever rational actors enter a negotiation, they try to realize their preferences given
their prior beliefs about the problem at hand and the available policy options for dealing
with it. In many cases these causal beliefs are tentative, since a comprehensive assessment
of the situation is not possible due to overlarge complexity of the issue (Goldstein and
Keohane, 1993). But uncertainty alone is not sufficient to make rational arguing effective:
as long as new causal knowledge that calls their initial definition of the situation into
question is unavailable, rational actors will always determine the negotiation outcome in
a traditional bargaining game. That is, they will merely react to external shocks such as
economic crises or naming and shaming campaigns by transnational actors. Additionally,
promises and threats as well as the use of package deals and side payments will characterize
any final agreement among them. Putting forward arguments, on the other hand, will be
regarded as mere cheap talk and thus have no effect on the outcome.

t0 t1
Initial Bargaining Game Revised Bargaining Game Outcome
new causal know- persuadee accepts

ledge becomes available new causal knowledge
Persuasion Game
Figure 1. Arguments and Persuasion in a Rationalist Framework
However, if new causal knowledge becomes available throughout the negotiations the
ensuing dynamics will be different. In such a case, the initial bargaining game will be
suspended. Instead, the players will engage in a persuasion game (Glazer and Rubinstein,
2004) where one party claims to possess new knowledge about the situation at hand and
wishes to convince the other party to endorse it.14 Once the persuadee accepts this know-
ledge and adapts his beliefs accordingly the parameters of the initial game will change
and the parties will play a revised bargaining game to bring the negotiations to an end
(see Figure 1).15 Since the persuadee simply alters his initial beliefs without actually
changing his preferences, I refer to this process as functional persuasion. But how exactly
does this belief-driven change in bargaining positions come about? Specifically, what are
the causal pathways of functional persuasion that link changes in the underlying bargain-
ing game to the process of knowledge generation and transmission?
I will illustrate the causal pathways of functional persuasion with the following styl-
ized example. Consider an actor preparing a bargaining position for an upcoming multi-
lateral negotiation. Assume that given his assessment of the situation, he will formulate
a position that is best suited to accomplish his two main goals. Assume further that he
initially believes that these goals are conflictive in the given situation, i.e. the probability
of realizing his first goal will decline when he tries to increase the probability of realizing
his second one. Depending on the specification of his utility function, the actor will
choose a bargaining position where his indifference curve is tangential to the situation-
specific constraint line (the solid line in Figure 2).16
Now suppose that another negotiation participant (the persuader) wishes to persuade
our actor (the persuadee) to change his predetermined bargaining position. According to
functional persuasion theory the persuader will only be successful if he provides the
persuadee with new causal knowledge about the problem at hand or the policy options
available to him.17 Once the persuader claims to possess such knowledge the parties will
terminate their bargain over specific issues. Instead, the persuader will try to convince
the persuadee of the validity of his revised understanding of the situation and ultimately
ask him to change his own prior beliefs accordingly. The persuadee will easily accept this
request if it opens up new policy options or alters the definition of the situation in such a
direction that his two goals become less conflictive (corresponding to an outward shift of

Grobe 13
high
New causal
knowledge reveals
that goals are less
conflictive than
initial beliefs
suggested. Definition
of the situation is
Probability of realizing Goal 1
adapted accordingly
New causal
knowledge reveals
that goals are more
conflictive than
initial beliefs
suggested. Definition
of the situation is
adapted accordingly Constraint line according to
initial definition of the situation:
Goals are conflictive
low
high
Probability of realizing Goal 2
Figure 2. The Effects of New Casual Knowledge
the constraint line in Figure 2). This will be different, however, if the emerging new
knowledge shrinks his action set and thereby exacerbates the perceived conflict of interest
(corresponding to an inward shift of the constraint line in Figure 2). In such a case the
persuadee, and any rational actor in general, will be suspicious, as the newly available
knowledge might be used to further the self-interest of its proponent (see Crawford,
2003). This constant danger of spinning raises an important conceptual question: what
characteristics does new causal knowledge have to display in order to be accepted by the
persuadee even if it minimizes his set of feasible actions?18
The sources of new causal knowledge or why impartiality is important

Of course, this important question touches on the broader issue of learning with which
the social sciences have wrestled for a long time (Camerer, 2003: 265–335; Levy, 1994).
I cannot even hope to settle this debate here nor do I generate new insights; I merely
summarize the most notable findings and report how these findings relate to my own
argument on functional persuasion.
Peter Haas (2004), drawing on lessons from the last 30 years of multilateral environ-
mental governance, recently showed that the successful diffusion of new causal knowledge
is heavily dependent on the way this knowledge is generated in the first place. State officials
will only accept new causal knowledge if it is both credible and legitimate.19 Haas defines

credibility in terms of autonomy and integrity. That is, credible knowledge is developed
by an autonomous group of respected scientists who are independent from the broader
policy discourse to which their research relates. Moreover, new knowledge fulfills the
standard of legitimacy if it is widely accepted outside the community of scholars that
generated it. As long as there is widespread dissent within the scientific community,
states are unlikely to accept new knowledge that goes against their current policy stance.
Credibility and legitimacy play a key role in the diffusion of new causal knowledge in
the course of negotiations. Thus arguments put forward by governments are very likely to
be discounted, especially if these arguments are used to buttress the validity of one’s own
bargaining position or to convince another state to reformulate its initial position. Rational
actors will always be suspicious of such a move and judge it as an attempt to mask egoistic
interest with an argumentative robe. However, if state officials suddenly introduce new
causal knowledge that defeats their own bargaining position, other states are more likely
to accept it, as such a move constitutes a strong signal for the validity of this knowledge.
In sum, the process of knowledge generation becomes key to understanding the success
conditions of functional persuasion. Rational actors will only react to new causal knowledge
if they can ensure the trustworthiness of the actors promoting it, and the most compelling
safeguard of this trustworthiness is the reputation of science.
Confronting theory with evidence: How powerful

are words in practice?
Outlining the test design
From the viewpoint of theory, there are numerous causal pathways by which arguments may
exert an influence on the outcome of international negotiations. None of these pathways,
which are summarized in Table 1, can be ruled out a priori. It is an entirely empirical question
which of the outlined persuasion theories best explains the role of argumentative talk in mul-
tilateral negotiations. To shed light on this question I conduct a two-step empirical test. First,
I check whether the power of words can dominate the power of interest even when states are
well informed about the problem they have to deal with and positions are clear-cut. Thereby,
I correct the omitted variable bias that plagued earlier studies on authentic persuasion. Second,
if it turns out that argumentative talk is only successful under conditions of uncertainty, I will
test whether the functional persuasion model, with its focus on causal beliefs, or the sincere
persuasion model, with its focus on preferences, is better suited to capture this process.
Table 1. Constructivism, Rationalism and the Role of Argumentative Talk
Uncertainty as a precondition?
Yes No
Status of Endogenous to situation Sincere Persuasion Authentic Persuasion
preferences (Constructivism)
Exogenous to situation Functional Persuasion Traditional Bargaining
(Rationalism)

Grobe 15
My null hypothesis for this two-step test is derived from functional persuasion theory.
According to this theory argumentative persuasion only works when states are uncertain
either about the problem at hand or the available policy options for dealing with it. In
such a case they are likely to alter their prior beliefs when new causal knowledge emerges
and they have evidence for the trustworthiness of its proponent. This revision of beliefs
in turn will lead to a reformulation of their initial bargaining position. The following
hypothesis captures this relationship:
H0: The less a state’s knowledge about the nature of the problem and the available policy
options for dealing with it, the more likely it is to observe belief-driven changes in its bargaining
position when new causal knowledge is spilled into the negotiation process by trusted actors.
This hypothesis may serve as a baseline against which the two constructivist persuasion
accounts can be tested. In the case of perfect information or the absence of new knowledge,
the hypothesis directly implies that talk is cheap and thus traditional bargaining dynamics
will characterize the negotiations. Only when states negotiate under uncertainty will they
have a reason to be receptive to arguments that help them overcome cognitive limitations.
In order to test these claims, I use data from the International Regimes Database
(IRD).20 The IRD contains data on 23 environmental regimes and thus makes it possible
to control for issue area specific effects, when testing the above hypothesis. Unfortunately,
the IRD does not contain a variable that tracks the bargaining positions of individual states
throughout the negotiations. This lack of data on the dependent variable makes a quantitative
approach unfeasible. Therefore, I am going to conduct two case studies in which I maximize
variation on the independent variable. First, I analyse one case that is characterized by a low
degree of uncertainty about the nature of the problem and the available options for dealing
with it. Second, I pick one case for which the opposite is true.
Since my two cases generate only three observations, I will employ the method of match-
ing to insure the validity of my inference (King et al., 1994).21 By holding important alterna-
tive independent variables constant between the two cases, I will be able to rule out the most
prominent alternative explanations. In particular, these explanations are the following:
1. The power distribution argument, aka the realist explanation: differences in the
distribution of power explain the hypothesized variation between the two cases,
as powerful states can force less powerful states to change their bargaining position
(Mearsheimer, 1994/5).
2. The sovereignty costs argument, aka the institutionalist explanation: differ-
ences in sovereignty costs explain the hypothesized variation between the two
cases, as it is more difficult to persuade a state to sign a treaty that involves
more delegation of sovereignty. That is, whenever states expect to be tightly
bound by an agreement, they have an incentive to bargain hard over the precise
legal terms (Fearon, 1998).
3. The domestic pressure argument, aka the liberal explanation: differences in
levels of opposition from domestic interest groups explain the hypothesized
variation between the two cases, as the activities of these groups constrain the
freedom of action that diplomats often hold (Moravcsik, 1997).

In addition to controlling for these three alternative explanations, the two cases have to
exhibit two other characteristics. First, to guarantee the need for argumentative persuasion
of any kind, the preferences of the negotiating parties have to be incompatible. If this
were not the case an emerging consensus would be no surprise. Second, credible knowledge
brokers such as scientific communities or NGOs have to be able to influence the discursive
setting or to provide the parties with new causal knowledge in order to make authentic,
sincere or functional persuasion work.
The IRD lists the power distribution and the degree of interest compatibility among
the parties as well as the level of uncertainty and the presence of non-state actors during
the negotiations. The pressure exerted by domestic interest groups, however, is not
directly coded. But the IRD encompasses a variable that measures the severity of the
domestic battles over the terms of agreement within member states in the operationalization
stage, which I will use as a proxy for domestic pressure.22 Unfortunately, the last control
variable, sovereignty costs, is not coded at all. Therefore, I use the Strength Index
developed by Pamela Chasek (1997: 443–5) to assess the sovereignty costs of the two
agreements. This index measures the strength of international environmental agreements
by analysing the stringency of both the legal provisions the treaty entails and the enforcement
mechanism it sets forth to secure compliance with the treaty rules.
To minimize threats to inference, which always loom large in small-N studies, all alter-
native explanatory variables have to be held constant between the two cases. According to
the IRD and the Strength Index there are only two cases that perfectly fulfill this criterion.
First, the negotiations that led to the establishment of the Commission for the Conservation
of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Second, the negotiations that resulted
in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL),
which is aimed at avoiding operational and accidental oil spills. According to the IRD, the
amount of uncertainty varies considerably between the two cases as well as within the
CCAMLR case. When negotiating the CCAMLR agreement, the participating states were
faced with two largely independent issues. One of these issues was characterized by a high
degree of uncertainty, whereas information was fairly complete concerning the other one.
In the MARPOL negotiations, on the other hand, the parties did not face any uncertainty at
all. Moreover, the IRD reveals that in both negotiations states had highly incompatible
preferences and faced an uneven distribution of power among participants. The same is
true for sovereignty costs, which did not differ between the two cases (Chasek, 1997: 445).
Only the severity of domestic battles slightly varied.23
If the null hypothesis is correct, the two cases will reveal a high correlation between
the degree of uncertainty and observed changes in bargaining positions in reaction to
new causal knowledge. Moreover, these changes will be the result of modified causal
beliefs instead of redefined state preferences. In particular, I predict that arguments have
no impact on the outcome of the MARPOL negotiations. Since all parties at the negotiating
table were well informed about both the problem at hand and the available policy options,
their actions as well as the final outcome should be in accordance with traditional
bargaining theory. In the CCAMLR negotiations, however, the participating states faced
high uncertainty over one issue and were well informed about their policy options in the
other. Therefore, I expect the first issue mainly to be settled by arguments that infuse
new causal knowledge into the negotiation process and thus lead to belief-driven changes

Grobe 17
in states’ bargaining positions, whereas the second issue will again resemble the process
of pure inter-state bargaining. However, if these predictions are not borne out in the
subsequent empirical analysis this will constitute strong evidence for the respective
constructivist account of argumentative persuasion, as all relevant alternative explanations
are controlled for.
Preventing ocean pollution from oil — the case of MARPOL

State preferences and institutional context. The growth of capitalist economies through-
out the 20th century has been heavily dependent on the constant supply of cheap oil.
Consequently, trade in oil among nations reached new records every decade until the
1980s. Unfortunately, this rapid expansion of trade has gone hand in hand with increas-
ing operational and accidental pollution of the seas by oil (M’Gonigle and Zacher, 1979:
14–23). Although these externalities produce considerable collective harm, it is difficult
to deal with them effectively. Individual persons are only mildly affected by oil pollu-
tion, whereas shipowners have a strong interest in preventing costly regulation aimed at
reducing operational oil discharges in open waters. Thus protecting the oceans from oil
pollution involves solving a classic collective action problem. In the case of marine pol-
lution this is especially difficult because ‘nations with incentives to control pollution
lack the authority to do so, [whereas] those with the authority may lack the incentives’
(Mitchell, 1994: 76).
In general, there are three factors that influence a state’s interest concerning the reduction
of oil discharges: the level of domestic concern, the length of its coastline that is affected
by oil spills and the size of its tanker fleet involved in oil trade (Mitchell, 1994: 112). In
particular, the major maritime shipping nations, which account for the vast majority of
the world tanker tonnage, have a strong incentive to protect their shipowners from tight
environmental regulations. In the 1970s, the decade of the MARPOL negotiations, these
nations were mostly developed countries from the western hemisphere, with the notable
exception of Liberia.24 But not all countries within this group had conservative positions
on discharge regulations, as they either faced strong domestic interest groups pushing for
environmental action or were affected by oil pollution. States confronted with these
cross-cutting incentives were the US, the USSR and to some extent Great Britain. A third
group, the non-maritime or coastal nations that were not actively engaged in oil trade at
that time, but were located at major shipping routes, naturally favoured tighter restric-
tions for operational discharges. But as these states were only small in number and power
they needed allies from the group of maritime nations to accomplish their environmen-
talist goals (M’Gonigle and Zacher, 1979: 263–98).
Despite these difficulties, the international community of states was moderately
successful in dealing with the adverse effects stemming from oil trade. In 1948 governments
had signed the Convention of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization
(IMCO), which was assigned the status of a UN specialized agency when it came into
being a decade later. And, in 1954, a first attempt was made to develop discharge standards
in order to address the growing pollution of oceans by oil. With hindsight, these first
steps were insufficient to deal effectively with the pollution problem, but they at least
provided an institutional framework in which later agreements could be embedded.25

The MARPOL negotiations. Since earlier discharge standards were largely unenforceable
outside of ports, shipowners barely complied with these regulations (M’Gonigle and
Zacher, 1979: 107). But the apparent need for new regulatory standards notwithstanding,
the international community was slow in revising the existing legal framework. Only
when the Torrey Canyon ran aground off the coast of Cornwall, sparking huge public
outcry, did this inertia come to a sudden end. Pushed by the pressure of domestic
environmentalist forces, the US government enacted legislation to counter the adverse
effects of oil spills. Concerned by this unilateral move, other maritime states agreed to
return to the bargaining table in order finally to revise the antiquated regulatory frame-
work on oil pollution (Grolin, 1988: 36).
The ensuing International Conference on Marine Pollution, held in the autumn of
1973, was largely built around three major US proposals.26 Two of these proposals
tried respectively to introduce new discharge standards and control technologies,
whereas the third one was concerned with matters of enforcement. Up to 1973, all dis-
charge regulations had been limited to black oils rather than ‘white’ or refined oils
(Sielen and McManus, 1983: 145). So the first proposal of the US delegation was
geared at extending all existing legal provision to refined oils. Since it was foremost
the major European shipping nations such as Norway and Great Britain that traded
white oil, they fiercely opposed the US proposal and fought it on scientific grounds.
They objected to the claim that refined oils had toxic properties by questioning its
validity. Lacking clear scientific evidence that could settle the disagreement, the par-
ties maintained their initial positions on the issue. The proposal was finally supported
by a narrow majority and thus adopted with a 23 to 19 vote, as the US, sided by the
environmentally-minded coastal states, could rally enough developing countries with-
out major shipping industries to accept the proposal. The same scenario occurred when
the parties discussed the second US proposal, which aimed at introducing new tech-
nology to prevent operational oil spills — segregated ballast tanks (SBTs). Again, the
large European shipping nations opposed the proposal to the very end, but it was once
more adopted by majority vote (M’Gonigle and Zacher, 1979: 114–21). These by now
familiar patterns also capture the sequence that led to the defeat of the third proposal
on ‘port-state enforcement’. The US delegation and its faithful supporters from the
coastal states on the one side, and the big maritime nations on the other, tried to win
over the developing countries to safeguard their respective interests with regard to the
enforcement issue. In contrast to the earlier proposals, the developing countries con-
cerned about their jurisdictional preferences sided with the maritime states. Therefore,
the US proposal on port-state enforcement was defeated and consequently not part of
the final Convention adopted in 1973.
On paper, the MARPOL 1973 agreement was a success for the US delegation, as it
contained far-reaching provisions touted by the Americans. In reality, however, things
looked different. By 1976 only three minor states had ratified the Convention and there
was serious doubt whether MARPOL 1973 would ever enter into force.27 But another
series of disastrous tanker accidents, followed by an initiative of US President Carter
to deal with the problem of oil pollution unilaterally, brought the parties back to the
negotiating table. The major debate in the subsequent International Conference on
Tanker Safety and Pollution Prevention, held in 1978, was once more on the SBT issue

Grobe 19
(Sielen and McManus, 1983: 158–62). The US delegation expanded its 1973 SBT proposal
also to cover existing tanker fleets. Oil companies from the major maritime states, backed
by their governments, strongly opposed this idea of retrofitting existing ships with
additional tanks and preferred a cheaper system recently developed by British oil
companies — crude oil washing (COW). Both sides put forward numerous arguments to
prove the superiority of their preferred solution, but in the absence of new scientific
evidence these arguments were purely rhetorical in nature. Consequently, the conflict
was finally settled by a compromise demanding both systems in newly built tankers,
whereas older ships were only required to install one of the two systems. Of course, the
logical consequence of this compromise was that, in fact, ‘COW would become the
operational system’ (M’Gonigle and Zacher, 1979: 140).
In sum, the MARPOL negotiations seem to be a model case of rationalist bargaining
theory. Both conferences dealing with the revision of the existing legal framework on
marine pollution were the direct result of external events leading to a threat of the US
administration to resort to unilateral legislation in cases of ongoing international inertia.
Furthermore, the two major voting groups, i.e. the environmentalist bloc led by the US
and the coalition of major maritime states, were fairly coherent throughout the 1973 and
1978 conferences. Contrary to the expectations of authentic persuasion theory, no notable
changes in bargaining positions were recorded, although the participating states frequently
justified their initial position by underscoring its scientific validity. This finding implies
that argumentative talk among the negotiating parties was indeed cheap, as predicted by
the rationalist bargaining model. Consequently, the MARPOL convention was the result
of a clear-cut compromise rather than a reasoned consensus between the two groups with
opposing preferences.28
Protecting marine living resources in Antarctica — the case of CCAMLR

State preferences and institutional context. Similar to MARPOL, the negotiations lead-
ing to the adoption of CCAMLR in 1980 were embedded in a larger institutional frame-
work — the Antarctic Treaty System. Since the exploration of Antarctica had become a
major interest of various states at the beginning of the 20th century, disputes over ter-
ritorial claims were frequent among the members of the international community. To
bring these conflicts over ownership and jurisdiction to an end, the Antarctic Treaty was
signed in 1959. The Treaty, however, was completely silent on the use of Antarctica’s
vast resources and thus could not deal with the growing interest in resource exploitation
and ownership (Beck, 1986: 212). By the end of the 1960s an increasing number of
nations started catching krill, a shrimp-like crustacean that forms the basis of the entire
Antarctic marine system by providing an important food source for other species such
as whales and seals. This rise in commercial fishing operations sparked concern about
over-exploitation of krill causing harm to the entire ecosystem surrounding Antarctica.
To prevent such a scenario, which also would have disrupted the long-term profitability
of major fishing fleets, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties agreed on drafting a
convention aimed at protecting Antarctic marine living resources. But before the final
document could be adopted a number of conflicting issues had to be resolved in the
upcoming CCAMLR negotiations.

By the 1970s, the Consultative Parties were divided along two broad cleavages. The
first cleavage separated the fishing states from the environmentally-minded conservationists.
The group of the fishing states comprised the largest fishing nations, Japan and the
USSR, as well as some smaller states such as Chile and Poland. As long as the Southern
Ocean ecosystem would not be seriously threatened by overfishing, the commercial
interest of these states in fisheries made them natural opponents of strict harvesting
quotas. On the other hand, conservationist states having no material interest in living
marine resources pushed for tighter regulation in order to protect the Antarctic environ-
ment from expanded human interference not related to scientific research.
The second cleavage divided claimants and non-claimants.29 According to James
Barnes (1982: 265), an expert on the law of the Southern Ocean, some states tried to
‘enhance their Antarctic claims through the mechanism of the new living resources
regime’. But non-claimants were aware of this strategy and thus were determined ‘to rule
out any concessions regarding actual control of alleged economic zones based on continental
territorial claims south of 60°S’.
The CCAMLR negotiations. The issue of regulating living resource exploitation in

Antarctica came on to the agenda at the beginning of the 1970s, when scientists first
discussed possible adverse effects of harvesting krill on the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
From then on, the environmentally-minded states tried to convince the fishing nations to
adopt tighter harvesting regulations. But it was not until 1978 that two formal Special
Consultative Sessions were scheduled to deal with this issue. At the first session in
Canberra, the initial discussion revolved around a draft convention sponsored by the US
delegation. Since this convention strongly emphasized the importance of protecting the
Antarctic ecosystem and thus entailed strict harvesting regulations, it was strongly
opposed by the traditional fishing nations. Consequently, most of these nations came up
with their own drafts to avoid far-reaching regulation of fisheries in the Southern Ocean.
These drafts reflected the belief that management of Antarctic waters should be based on
maximum sustainable yield that had been commonly used in preceding fishing agree-
ments (Frank, 1983: 303–5). Although knowledge of the Antarctic ecosystem was highly
limited at that point in time, this approach seemed ill-suited to protecting the living
resources in Antarctica because of the presumed interdependence of krill and other spe-
cies. However, there was still no decisive evidence that a maximum sustainable yield
approach would indeed constitute a threat to the ecosystem in Antarctica. Nonetheless,
the environmentally-minded states, supported by a number of scientists, tried to convince
the fishing states, particularly Japan and the USSR, to accept an ecosystem-oriented
conservation standard. It was argued that the introduction of such a far-reaching standard
would rule out situations in which harvesting krill would produce an adverse effect on
dependent and related species in the future. Needless to say, such a preventive spirit was
not enough of an argument to make the fishing states change their initial position.
Since the fishing states could not be convinced to accept the ecosystem-oriented con-
servation standard at the Canberra conference, the issue was still on the agenda at the
second Consultative Session in Buenos Aires. But this time the conservationist states
were to succeed. After intensive discussions in the ad hoc scientific group, Japan and the
USSR, their strong initial scepticism notwithstanding, were ultimately persuaded on

Grobe 21
scientific grounds to accept the ecosystem approach. This surprising change in positions
was due to a newly emerging scientific consensus that the ecosystem standard would
indeed be necessary to prevent over-exploitation of Antarctica’s marine living resources
(Barnes, 1982: 252).30
Despite this early consensus in defining a standard for regulating living resource
exploitation, the signing of the final convention was delayed another two years. This
delay was mainly due to deep disagreements over jurisdictional questions.31 In particular,
the constant attempts of some claimant states to exploit the widespread concern about
protecting the Antarctic environment to further their own political goals sparked addi-
tional discussions. For example, the Argentinean proposal to establish a zone around the
continent in which all fishing activities would be banned was quickly exposed as a politi-
cal manoeuvre to enhance the jurisdictional control of claimant states and was conse-
quently voted down by the other delegations (Barnes, 1982: 252). But the most difficult
issue to resolve was the French Islands problem. Since the Convention was supposed to
regulate fishing in the whole Southern Ocean, the French government was concerned
about its rights over marine resources off the Kerguelen and Cozet islands, which are
located in these waters. In the end, it took the delegates more than a year to find a com-
promise acceptable to the French government. The two islands were formally excluded
from the area of application of the Convention, but France could agree ‘that the waters
should be included in the area of application of any specific conservation measure under
consideration or to indicate that they should be excluded’ (Beck, 1986: 228).
In sum, the CCAMLR case exhibits the patterns expected by functional persuasion
theory. First, the idea that extensive krill catching is likely to produce an adverse effect on
the Anatarctic ecosystem confronted the fishing states with a trade-off so far unknown.
But as long as no decisive evidence was available for the presumption that harvesting krill
indeed threatens the ecological equilibrium, the fishing nations were strongly opposed to
defining strict harvesting quotas. Consequently, the initial disagreement over defining an
appropriate conservation standard was only resolved when new causal insights on the
importance of krill within the Southern Ocean were widely accepted among scientists. At
this point, Japan and Russia could not but change their prior belief that implementing a
maximum sustainable yield approach would not result in overfishing. Facing an increased
conflict between securing the ecological equilibrium in the Southern Ocean and harvesting
krill, they revised their original bargaining position and went along with the more ambi-
tious ecosystem approach promoted by the conservationist states. The nature of this
change — especially its timely correlation with the emergence of a scientific consensus
about the effect of harvesting krill on the Southern Ocean ecosystem — implies that it was
entirely belief-driven and was not due to a redefinition of underlying preferences, as the
sincere persuasion model assumes. Fishing states neither lost their interest in harvesting
krill nor did they turn into environmentalists during the negotiations. They simply wanted
to preserve the fish stock to protect their own commercial interest.
Second, the discussions over the jurisdictional issues followed typical patterns of
rationalist bargaining models. Since all states were perfectly informed about the problem
at hand as well as the available policy options, the issue could not be settled by resorting
to arguments. For example, France was not receptive to the well-reasoned argument that
all other states possessing islands in the same juridical and physical situation as the

French islands did not object to including their 200-mile zones in the Convention’s area
of application (Barnes, 1982: 256). Only after other delegations granted France an opt-out
from this provision, could CCAMLR finally be adopted.32
Conclusion
Constructivists are right: arguments do matter. They are not only pervasive in international
negotiations, but they indeed have the power to change the outcome of these negotiations
and thus go well beyond mere window dressing. On the flip side, constructivists count this
apparent power of words as evidence for a change in preferences too readily, and thereby
lose sight of alternative rationalist explanations. To be sure, this troubling practice is not
only a fault of constructivists, but also of scholars working in the rationalist tradition who
have not yet found an adequate role for argumentative talk in their conceptual framework.
In this article I tried to close this gap by introducing a rationalist theory of argumentative
persuasion, which I call functional persuasion theory. This theory builds on a sequential
game theoretical approach and focuses on belief-driven changes in bargaining positions
in multilateral negotiations. Specifically, it links these changes to the availability of new
causal knowledge that is spilled into the negotiation process by trusted actors. Therefore,
functional persuasion only works when actors are uncertain about the nature of the
problem and the available policy options for dealing with it. In the case of either incomplete
or even perfect information or the absence of such knowledge, functional persuasion
theory directly converges with traditional bargaining approaches.
This property makes it possible to use functional persuasion theory as a baseline
against which constructivist persuasion accounts can be tested in order to answer the
empirical question whether argumentative talk simply helps to overcome cognitive
limitations or whether it indeed has the power to change agents’ preferences. To provide
a first cut answer to this important question, I analysed two negotiations from the issue
area of environmental politics. These case studies prima facie support functional persuasion
theory, whereas I do not find evidence backing the most prominent constructivist
explanations. Neither authentic persuasion theory nor sincere persuasion theory seem to
capture the dynamics of the two cases. In the MARPOL negotiations, where the parties
were perfectly informed about the situation at hand, argumentative talk was without
effect on the outcome although all states justified their positions by making well-grounded
validity claims. On the other hand, states were highly receptive to arguments in the
CCAMLR case. But these arguments did not lead to a reformulation of preferences; they
simply helped states to form more adequate beliefs about the effect of harvesting krill on
the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
Needless to say, these results are far from being a definite disproof of the theory of
communicative action. Nonetheless, they show how important it is to discriminate carefully
between belief-based and preference-based explanations of successful argumentative
persuasion. In this regard, functional persuasion theory can guide future empirical studies on
argumentative persuasion in multilateral negotiations by serving as a baseline against which
constructivists can evaluate their claims. This would enable them to considerably strengthen
the validity of their inferences. So let the new quest for the power of words begin.

Grobe 23
Acknowledgements
For helpful comments on earlier versions of this article I would like to thank Marco Breit and the
participants in the Research Methods Seminar at Princeton University in spring 2007, notably Bob
Keohane and Mareike Kleine. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable
suggestions and Ian Lloyd and Claudia Helbsing-Kessler for useful editing work. Finally, financial
support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is greatly acknowledged.
Notes
1 Following standard notation in decision theory, I use the term uncertainty to describe a situation
in which actors may be confronted with events they have never thought about when they
formulated their initial plan of action. Therefore, the concept of uncertainty needs to be carefully
discriminated from the concept of incomplete information used in standard bargaining models,
because the latter presupposes actors that are at least capable of estimating the probability of all
events that are of relevance to their decision (see Nelson and Winter, 1982).
2 The reader is referred to Thomas Risse’s (2000) summary of the debate for further references.
3 The work of Nicole Deitelhoff is part of a larger empirical research project that was initiated by a
group of German constructivists around Harald Müller and Thomas Risse following the ZIB-debate.
A main aim of this project was to delineate the scope conditions of Habermasian-style communicative
action in multilateral negotiations (see Ulbert et al., 2004; Deitelhoff and Müller, 2005).
4 This deep uncertainty over the nature of the central legal issues seems to drive the results of
Deitelhoff’s study, as it is highlighted several times in her account of the negotiation process.
5 Interestingly, this shift is mirrored in the writings of Thomas Risse over the last decade. In
his contribution to the ZIB-debate (Risse-Kappen, 1995), Risse came up with the idea that
negotiations are steered towards a reasoned consensus by agents determined to reach a common
understanding (verständigungsorientiertes Handeln). Subsequently, in his seminal article on
communicative action in world politics (2000), he — although still committed to Habermasian-
style communicative action — introduced uncertainty as a factor that is conducive to the logic of
arguing to prevail in multilateral negotiations. Consequently, three years later, Risse explicitly
departed from Habermas’s classical concept of communicative rationality by stating: ‘In order to
trace argumentative persuasion in multilateral negotiations, it is no longer necessary to assume
a readiness on part of the agent to reach a mutual understanding (Verständigungsbereitschaft)’
(Risse, 2003: 114; my translation). Finally, in 2005, his position fully converged towards
Checkel’s when he described communicative action ‘as a micro-mechanism by which new
empirical insights and normative principles get diffused’ (Ulbert and Risse, 2005: 363). For an
elaborate discussion of this interesting conceptual evolution see Saretzki (2007).
6 For another example of this kind see Niemann (2004).
7 Experimental economists have also started to use this consistency test to assess the prevalence
of cheap talk in strategic interactions (see Brosig et al., 2003; Yamamori et al., 2004).
8 A similar problem arises when Checkel (2001: 564) describes the learning of new interests
as distinctively constructivist, for newly emerging interests could simply make the agent’s
preference ordering more complete, without violating the transitivity assumption all rational
choice approaches have to rely on (see Jehle and Reny, 2001: 5–19).

9 Technically, all players are assumed to have prior beliefs about the situation at hand, which
are subsequently updated when either past moves or communication reveals new information
about the type of other players or which node of the game tree an actor is at. Although most
applications of this framework rely on the assumption that all actors update their beliefs
from a commonly known probability distribution, it is even applicable when players have
heterogeneous priors (Morris, 1994).
10 See Keck (1993) for a similar, but more elaborate, version of this argument.
11 Thomas Risse (1999: 533) developed this argument in the late 1990s in a slightly stronger
version. In his view, rhetorical action only works when at least one other actor is sincere,
i.e., ready to change her preferences during the interaction. But this insistence on sincerity
is too strong a claim — mere uncertainty is sufficient. Rational actors in the sense that
Schimmelfennig envisions them will only resort to argumentative talk and thereby risk falling
into the consistency trap if their arguments are likely to prevail in public discourse. Therefore,
they only need to target an audience who does not yet know all facts relevant to its decision,
but is not necessarily sincere (see Grobe, 2007: 76f; Keohane, 2003: 5-7).
12 Of course, this is not meant to discount the value of Schimmelfennig’s elaborate argument,
which simply has a different focus. It is directed at showing how inconsistent rhetoric might
lead to changes in positions by undercutting the reputation an actor enjoys. Thereby, it sets in
after a particular set of arguments proved inadequate within a given negotiation context.
13 On the difference between uncertainty and incomplete information see note 1.
14 This makes the persuasion game a classic game of incomplete information where one actor
holds private information that partly determines the pay-off of another actor. Therefore the latter
needs to assess the trustworthiness of the former in order to formulate his optimal strategy.
15 This evolution of three stand-alone games of incomplete information cannot be captured in a
standard game theoretical approach, as one reviewer suggested. Since actors are unable to know the
content or sometimes even the direction of a new argument, they will never succeed in estimating
the parameters of the latter two games in a meaningful way at the beginning of their interaction
(see Johnson, 2002). Therefore they do not simply update their prior beliefs within the existing
game, but start playing a new one, which is aimed at evaluating the credibility of newly emerging
knowledge. Henry Farrell’s (2003) case study on the regulation of international e-commerce
illustrates this idea. When US and European administrators tried to negotiate a basic legal
framework for international e-commerce two incompatible regulatory philosophies clashed and a
deadlock resulted. A solution only emerged when the US delegation introduced a completely new
regulatory idea — the Safe Harbor concept. In contrast to earlier proposals, this concept ‘protected
the privacy rights of European citizens [the major concern of EU officials] but did not require the
United States to introduce legislation [the major concern of US officials]’ (Farrell, 2003: 292). In
the end, this innovative proposal, which none of the parties had on their agenda at the beginning of
the negotiations, was key to creating a common ground for a final agreement.
16 For illustration purposes, I inserted a set of quasi-linear indifference curves into the figure, but the
argument is independent of preference structure. The reader may insert any curves of his choosing.
17 Technically, normative arguments could also be treated in the framework of rationalist theory, as
recent work by behavioural economists suggests. However, extensions of this kind would significantly
complicate empirical applications of functional persuasion theory and are hitherto limited to
experimental investigations (Grobe, 2009). Therefore, they remain unconsidered in this article.
18 I want to thank Gwyneth McClendon for pointing me to the importance of this particular question.

Grobe 25
19 In their study on the effectiveness of global environmental assessments, Mitchell et al. (2006)
reach the same conclusion as Haas: new knowledge has to be credible and legitimate in order
to be embraced by state officials.
20 A recent book by Breitmeier et al. (2006) includes a description and demonstration of the
database as well as a CD with the data protocol and current data.
21 In the CCAMLR negotiations, there were two relatively independent issues on the table, which
happen to display opposing degrees of uncertainty.
22 In most cases, domestic subgroups, opposing the regulation in the operationalization phase,
are actors of high capacity such as firms or lobby organizations who are well informed about
the consequences of new international agreements. These actors will not wait until a treaty is
negotiated to become active, but will already try to put pressure on their government during
the negotiations in order to influence the outcome in their favour. Nonetheless the proxy is
far from being perfect, for successful lobbying during the negotiation stage will considerably
reduce the likelihood of domestic battles in the operationalization stage.
23 According to the IRD data protocol, the operationalization stage of the CCAMLR agreement
was characterized by domestic political battles of medium severity, whereas no relevant battles
over the terms of agreement occurred in the MARPOL case.
24 However, Liberia’s tanker fleet is almost exclusively owned by American shipowners, who
have chosen Liberia as flag of convenience state (M’Gongile and Zacher, 1979: 292–4).
25 This is especially important for the authentic persuasion model to work, as actors have to share to
a certain degree a common lifeworld, which is generated by the institutionalization of issue areas.
26 The following analysis focuses solely on the most important proposals that aimed at a reduction
of operational oil pollution. This reduced focus does not affect the results, since proposals geared
at dampening accidental oil spills, e.g. the call for double-bottom tankers, followed similar
patterns as the discussions on operational pollution (Sielen and McManus, 1983: 166–72).
27 The Convention required ratification by 15 states, with a combined merchant fleet of not less
than 50 percent of world shipping by gross tonnage, to enter into force.
28 The validity of these findings is underscored by the fact that the most elaborate case studies
conducted on the oil pollution regime univocally stress the importance of coercive US leadership
and characterize the final outcome as a traditional package deal (Carlin, 2002; Grolin, 1988;
M’Gonigle and Zacher, 1979; Sielen and McManus, 1983). This high congruity is remarkable,
as the authors of these studies are far from sharing a common theoretical perspective.
29 At the time of the CCAMLR negotiations, seven governments claimed sovereignty over parts
of Antarctica. These states were Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway,
and the UK (Beck, 1986: 119–25).
30 Steinar Andresen (2002: 415) makes a similar observation in his case study on the effectiveness
of CCAMLR: ‘The correspondence between scientific advice and political decisions … is
very high. The ecosystem approach and the initiative to regulate fisheries in the Southern
Ocean came from the scientists, channeled through SCAR [Scientific Committee on Antarctic
Research], and their scientific advice was carefully followed in the drafting of the Convention.’
31 In contrast to the discussions on the conservation standard, the parties knew perfectly what was
at stake when debating jurisdictional questions and could quickly estimate the consequences
of legal provisions proposed by other delegations.
32 Similar to the MARPOL case, numerous case studies consistently report these negotiation
dynamics (Andresen, 2002; Barnes, 1982; Beck, 1986: 210–37; Frank, 1983).

References
Andresen S (2002) The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
(CCAMLR): Improving procedures but lacking results. In: Miles EL, Underdal A, Andresen S,
et al. (eds) Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 405–433.
Barnes JN (1982) The emerging convention on the conservation of Antarctic marine living
resources: An attempt to meet the new realities of resource exploitation in the Southern Ocean.
In: Charney JI (ed.) The New Nationalism and the Use of Common Spaces: Issues in Marine
Pollution and the Exploitation of Antarctica. Totowa, NJ: Allenheld Publishers, 239–286.
Beck P (1986) The International Politics of Antarctica. Beckenham: Croom Helm.
Breitmeier H, Young OR, and Zürn M (2006) Analyzing International Environmental Regimes:
From Case Study to Database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brosig J, Ockenfels A, and Weimann J (2003) The effect of communication media on cooperation.
German Economic Review 4(2): 217–241.
Bueno de Mesquita B, Morrow JD, and Zorick ER (1997) Capabilities, perception, and escalation.
The American Political Science Review 91(1): 15–27.
Camerer CF (2003) Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Carlin, EM (2002) Oil pollution from ships at sea: The ability of nations to protect a blue planet.
In: Miles EL, Underdal A, Andresen S, et al. (eds) Environmental Regime Effectiveness:
Confronting Theory with Evidence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 331–356.
Chasek PS (1997) A comparative analysis of multilateral negotiations. Group Decision and
Negotiation 6(5): 437–461.
Checkel JT (2000) Bridging the rational-choice/constructivist gap? Theorizing social interaction in
European institutions. ARENA Working Papers, WP 00/11.
Checkel JT (2001) Why comply? Constructivism, social norms and the study of international
institutions. International Organization 55(3): 553–588.
Crawford V (2003) Lying for strategic advantage: Rational and boundedly rational misrepresen-
tation of intentions. American Economic Review 93(1): 133–149.
Deitelhoff N (2003) Talking States into Persuasion: Norm-Entrepreneurs and the Manipulation
of Discursive Settings in Norm-construction Instances. Available at: www.ibdiskurse.de/ipc/
papers/deitelhoff.doc.
Deitelhoff N (2009) The discursive process of legalization: Charting islands of persuasion in the
ICC case. International Organization 63(1): 33–65.
Deitelhoff N Müller H (2005) Theoretical paradise — empirically lost? Arguing with Habermas.
Review of International Studies 31(1): 167–179.
Farrell H (2003) Constructing the international foundations of e-commerce: The EU–US safe
harbor arrangement. International Organization 57(1): 277–306.
Fearon J (1998) Bargaining, enforcement, and international cooperation. International
Organization 52(2): 269–305.
Frank RF (1983) The convention on the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources.
Ocean Development and International Law 13(3): 291–345.
Glazer J, Rubinstein A (2004) On optimal rules of persuasion. Econometrica 72(6): 1715–1736.

Grobe 27
Goldstein J, Keohane RO (eds) (1993) Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political
Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Grobe C (2007) Kooperation und Verhandlungen in den Internationalen Beziehungen. Eine
Neubetrachtung der ZIB-Debatte aus rationalistischer Perspektive. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.
Grobe C (2009) ‘Wie billig ist Reden wirklich? Kommunikative vs. strategische Rationalität in
einem experimentellen Diktatorspiel. Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 16(2): 269-297.
Grolin J (1988) Environmental hegemony, maritime community and the problem of oil tanker
pollution. In: Morris MA (ed.) North–South Perspectives on Marine Policy. Boulder, CO:
Westview, 13–44.
Haas PM (2004) When does power listen to truth? A constructivist approach to the policy process.
Journal of European Public Policy 11(4): 569–592.
Habermas J (1995a) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, vol. 1, Handlungsrationalität und
gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
Habermas J (1995b) Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns.
Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
Habermas J (2004) Rationalität der Verständigung. Sprechakttheoretische Erläuterungen zum
Begriff der kommunikativen Rationalität. In: Habermas J, Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung.
Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 102–137.
Jehle GA, Reny PJ (2001) Advanced Microeconomic Theory. Amsterdam: Addison-Wesley.
Johnson J (2002) How conceptual problems migrate: Rational choice, interpretation, and the
hazards of pluralism. Annual Review of Political Science 5: 223–248.
Katzenstein, PJ, Keohane RO, and Krasner SD (1998) International organization and the study of
world politics. International Organization 52(4): 645–685.
Keck O (1993) Information, Macht und gesellschaftliche Rationalität: Das Dilemma rationalen
kommunikativen Handelns, dargestellt am Beispiel eines internationalen Vergleichs der
Kernenergiepolitik. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Keck O (1995) Rationales Kommunikatives Handeln in den Internationalen Beziehungen: Ist
eine Verbindung von Rational Choice Theorie und Habermas. Theorie des Kommunikativen
Handelns möglich? Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 2(1): 5–48.
King G, Keohane RO, and Verba S (1994) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in
Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Keohane RO (2003) The Causal Pathways of Persuasion. mimeo: Duke University.
Levy JS (1994) Learning and foreign policy: Sweeping a conceptual minefield. International
Organization 48(2): 279–312.
Mearsheimer J (1994/1995) The false promise of international institutions. International Security
19(3): 5–49.
M’Gonigle, RM, Zacher MW (1979) Pollution, Politics, and International Law: Tankers at Sea.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Mitchell RB (1994) International Oil Pollution at Sea: Environmental Policy and Treaty
Compliance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mitchell RB, Clark WC, Cash DW, and Dickson NM (eds) (2006) Global Environmental
Assessments: Information and Influence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Moravcsik AM (1997) Taking preferences seriously: A liberal theory of international politics.
International Organization 51(4): 513–553.

Moravcsik AM (2001) Bringing constructivist theories of the EU out of the clouds: Have they
landed yet? European Union Politics 2(2): 226–240.
Morris S (1994) Trade with heterogeneous prior beliefs and asymmetric information. Econometrica
62(6): 1327–1347.
Morrow JD (1994) Modeling the forms of international cooperation: Distribution versus informa-
tion. International Organization 48(3): 387–423.
Müller H (1994) Internationale Beziehungen als Kommunikatives Handeln. Zeitschrift für
Internationale Beziehungen 1(1): 15–44.
Müller H (2004) Arguing, bargaining and all that: Communicative action, rationalist theory and
the logic of appropriateness in International Relations. European Journal of International
Relations 10(3): 395–435.
Nelson RR, Winter SG (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press.
Niemann A (2004) Between communicative and strategic action: The Article 113 Committee
and the negotiations on the WTO Basic Telecommunications Services Agreement. Journal of
European Public Policy 11(3): 379–407.
Risse T (1999) International norms and domestic change: Arguing and communicative behavior in
the human right area. Politics & Society 27(4): 529–559.
Risse T (2000) ‘Let’s argue!’: Communicative action in world politics. International Organization
54(1): 1–39.
Risse T (2003) Konstruktivismus, Rationalismus und die Theorie Internationaler Beziehungen.
In: Hellmann G, Wolf KD, and Zürn M (eds) Forschungsstand und Perspektiven der
Internationalen Beziehungen in Deutschland. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 99–132.
Risse-Kappen T (1995) Reden ist nicht billig: Zur Debatte um Kommunikation und Rationalität.
Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 2(1): 171–189.
Saretzki T (2007) Argumentieren, Verhandeln und Strategie. Theoretische Referenzen, begriffliche
Unterscheidungen und empirische Studien zu arguing und bargaining in der internationalen
Politik. In: Niesen P and Herborth B (eds) Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit. Frankfurt
a.M.: Suhrkamp, 111–146.
Schimmelfennig F (2001) The community trap: Liberal norms, rhetorical action, and the enlarge-
ment of the European Union. International Organization 55(1): 47–80.
Sielen AB, McManus RJ (1983) IMCO and the politics of ship pollution. In: Kay DA and Jacobson
HK (eds) Environmental Protection: The International Dimension. Totowa: Allanheld
Publishers, 104–183.
Ulbert C, Risse T (2005) Deliberately changing discourse: What does make arguing effective?
Acta Politica 40(3): 351–367.
Ulbert C, Risse T, and Müller H (2004) Arguing and bargaining in multilateral negotiations.
Paper presented to the Conference on Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics, Florence
21–22 May.
Yamamori T, Kato K, Kawagoe T, and Matsui A (2004) Voice matters in a dictator game. mimeo:
University of Tokyo.
Zangl B, Zürn M (1996) Argumentatives Handeln bei internationalen Verhandlungen: Moderate
Anmerkungen zur post-realistischen Debatte. Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 3(2):
341–366.

Grobe 29
Biographical note
Christian Grobe is a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Germany. He pursued a dou-

ble-degree programme in political science (Magister Artium, 2006) and economics
(Dipl.-Vw., 2008) at the universities of Heidelberg, Germany, and Princeton, USA. His
research is mainly focused on exploring the role of argumentative talk in multilateral
negotiations — currently by leveraging the works of experimental economics. His
latest publication, which recently appeared in the German international relations journal
Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, discusses the first results of this interdisci-
plinary approach.

International Negociations PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Negociations PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

European Journal of International

The power of words: Argumentative persuasion in international negotiations

The online version of this article can be found at:

Standing Group on International Relations of the ECPR

Email Alerts: http://ejt.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

The power of words: International Relations

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Arguments and preference change — persuasion in a

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Communicative action and the concept of sincere persuasion

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

of uncertainty from the beginning. Rather than focusing on a truth-seeking interaction

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Arguments and belief change — persuasion

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Functional persuasion theory and the role of new causal knowledge

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Initial Bargaining Game Revised Bargaining Game Outcome

new causal know- persuadee accepts

Figure 1. Arguments and Persuasion in a Rationalist Framework

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Figure 2. The Effects of New Casual Knowledge

The sources of new causal knowledge or why impartiality is important

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Confronting theory with evidence: How powerful

Table 1. Constructivism, Rationalism and the Role of Argumentative Talk

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Preventing ocean pollution from oil — the case of MARPOL

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Protecting marine living resources in Antarctica — the case of CCAMLR

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

The CCAMLR negotiations. The issue of regulating living resource exploitation in

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

Christian Grobe is a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Germany. He pursued a dou-

Downloaded from ejt.sagepub.com at University of Bucharest on September 2, 2011

You might also like