How high stakes affect te likelihood of reaching a successful agreement during international negotiations
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2019-06-28
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en
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This thesis wants to know how the high stakes for German domestic actors during the EU-Turkey refugee agreement negotiations affected the likelihood of reaching a successful agreement. The three-level game theory offers two rivalling explanations of the effects that these high stakes could have. On the one hand, the theory argues that domestic actors strive for a maximum representation of their viewpoints in international negotiations. Therefore, one would expect that the more these actors value the outcome of the negotiations, the more important it is that their opinion is represented. This causes them to be less willing to make concessions towards the negotiation subjects, which makes it more difficult to reach an agreement. On the other hand, the three-level game states that actors are more likely to support an agreement if the status quo is unfavourable. Since the status quo was a crisis situation, one would expect domestic actors to be very willing to make concessions, which makes it easier to reach an agreement.
A qualitative content analysis is used to analyse data from the websites and Twitter feeds of German political party to assess which of these rivalling explanations has the strongest explanatory power. The results show that the high stakes of the EU-Turkey refugee agreement negotiations caused domestic actors to be considerably less willing to make concessions towards the agreement, making the successful conclusion of the negotiations significantly less likely. These results are academically relevant, because they provide valuable knowledge on the explanatory power of different aspects of the three-level game, which helps build a more accurate theory. The results are also of great societal value, because they enable negotiators to assess the chances of successful ratification more accurately. This makes it possible to reach an agreement more quickly and with a greater chance of success.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen