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Arguing, Bargaining and all that: Communicative Action, Rationalist Theory and the Logic of Appropriateness in International Relations

Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany

Recently, calls for a ‘synthesis’ between rationalist and constructivist approaches have become louder. The question how the different ontological presuppositions of the two paradigms can be reconciled has been neglected. Starting from the ubiquity of ‘arguing’ and ‘bargaining’ in international negotiations, the article explores the various rationalist attempts to give an explanation for the use of these two types of speech acts by negotiatiors. It finds that eventually all these attempts seek resort to social explanations that deviate from the individualist ontology of rationalism. Efforts to specify the conditions under which negotiators follow alternatively a logic of consequentialism and appropriateness tend in fact to privilege either one or the other. Integration appears only possible if one assumes that the change between the two types of speech acts is guided by norms and rules that are shared among negotiators. This proposition suggests that the interest-based negotiation style follows a logic of appropriateness as much as a negotiation style aiming at communicative persuasion. This proposition, however, does not imply harmony or stasis. Rather, it accounts for conflicts of different understandings of appropriateness in intercultural, transnational and two-level discourses.

Key Words: action theory • communicative action • constructivism • Habermas • international negotiations • logic of appropriateness

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