The applicability of the two-level games

The study of international negotiations is gaining prominence within the field of study of international relations. The quantitative and qualitative increase of cooperative relations between States has demanded the improvement of interaction mechanisms, while that poses new challenges for negotiators to get to structure a negotiating strategy with greater success capacity.

Among the various theories that have emerged in the last two decades two, It stands out that initially developed by Robert Putnam, which is called the Theory of Two-Level Games. His initial effort is intended to identify the behavioral pattern of international negotiators, seeking to map the main pressures that act on him and that, somehow, may interfere with their decision making process.

In this sense, international negotiator should channel a set of domestic pressures and match them with the room for maneuver in the international arena. To better understand the role played by that trader, it is customary to compare it with a doorman, who must decide what can go and what can go.

This imaginary line is important as the idea that retrieves, still very present in the studies of international relations, in the face of orthodoxy of force in the area, it is not possible to make a full separation between domestic and international. There is a continuum between these two levels, which not only have a mutual interference, as also, and especially, They are built together.

Despite this important point raised, the theoretical perspective of Two-Level Games still faces some operational difficulties when its analytical framework is applied to reality, in that it is not possible to reduce the decision maker (o "porteiro") to one person or even institution.

Two are the main reasons that this failure would generate:

(1) the amount of information needed for more complex cases (as those that occur in conflicting settings – unlike the cooperative scenarios) is such that prevents the actual articulation by the negotiators of all the interests involved; e

(2) not all information is available since not all the actors involved in such a negotiation act in the same scenario, that is, not all sectors and pressure groups use the same forms of action. Like this, while some act directly on MRE (USTR, Congress…), others act more dispersed or indirect and less well known channels (as is the case of financing for political parties and electoral structure of grassroots organizations – indirect pressure).

Thus, the negotiator intercom has no real mapping of the forces facing the domestic level, at the same time that, extending this logic, can not map the domestic interests of counterparties.

Another point strikes me when considering the application of Two-Level Games is that this theory was developed for cooperative actions on international agreements and has serious limitations to consider cases of international confrontation, even in non-conflict areas, as is the case of international trade negotiations.

Thus, two central questions arise: (1) while in that case you think a relationship that tends to public exposure and that mobilizes more easily players, in the second the positions are held more closed form, and the negotiations that follow are also more closed,, therefore, They can more easily be negotiated through clear cross bargains to both sides.

The other question that arises (2) It is that an international cooperative negotiation spacing of trading possibilities of each of the parties is narrower. The parties want the agreement, this way does not exaggerate at positions more easily and tend to sag towards the continuation of negotiations. In the case of international clashes, parties are not always interested in getting some agreement, general actions were taken taking into account domestic and decisive factors that can not be submitted to international factors. Thus, when starting any attempt at solving the problem in question, parts come with a much smaller margin of maneuver and are less willing to negotiate. This does not just happen because the margin of maneuver acceptable solutions changed, but because of the very nature of the relationship.

The decision maker, for the reasons given above, It not always has the ability to absorb and understand all the information made available to you, so it is only able to see a part of the action network in which it is immersed. Changes in the network or the information that is available to the decision maker can alter your perception of the network itself, so he goes to face new points while leaving others to perceive hitherto available.

by extension, it follows that he does not always have the ability to know where they came from some information or forces that influence its decision-making, as it can be traced to the network points that were not known at that given moment.

This could help explain some of the apparent irrationality that exists in some decision making. The scientists, since the distant events, They may have access to a larger set of information, besides having a more appropriate time to map issue; therefore, tend to have a better view of the network the one that had the negotiator.

As a result of this methodological reflection, It is that the study of a contentious negotiation can not be done taking into account the raw information that the researcher has. It is essential to map the set of information that the trader had at the time to understand the decision-making.

magazine Author (www.revistaautor.com.br)

special CNPq

Yes IV – nº 39 / September 2004