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Do arguments matter? Argumentation and negotiation success at the 1997 Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2013

Janine Reinhard ,
Jan Biesenbender  and
Katharina Holzinger
Janine Reinhard
Affiliation:
Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Jan Biesenbender
Affiliation:
Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Katharina Holzinger*
Affiliation:
Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
*
*E-mail: katharina.holzinger@uni-konstanz.de
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Abstract

It is widely debated in studies of international negotiations why certain negotiators are more successful than others. Institutionalist and rationalist approaches claim that institutions and negotiators’ resources largely explain the outcome of negotiations, whereas constructivist approaches stress the importance of shared norms and values. The article asks to what extent the use of normative arguments explains negotiation success in EU treaty negotiations. We apply our approach to the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Amsterdam. We first define normative arguments as justifications for positions that refer to common norms and develop a concept of common values for EU constitutional negotiations. Second, we assess to what degree governments justify their positions by normative arguments using an automated analysis of position papers. Finally, we ask if such justifications increase success in negotiations. The results of our statistical models show that arguing affects negotiation success significantly and positively.

Keywords

arguingnormsEU treaty negotiationsTreaty of Amsterdamdictionary approach
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 283 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2013 

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