Modeling Negotiation Using “Narrative Grammar”: Exploring the Evolution of Meaning in a Simulated Negotiation

In many of the conflict in the world today, the struggle is explicitly over the privilege of defining the rules of the game. Israel, for instance, cannot be defined as being in “competition” with the Palestinian Authority, as Israel defines the terms of engagement with checkpoints, blockades and walls, while Hamas does it mainly with rockets and ambushes. However, the Palestinians’ continued suffering strengthens the legitimacy of their story that they are victims. From this perspective, the trap of that definition of the “game” is that it requires the Palestinians to continue to suffer in order to continue to fuel the story of their victimization. Conversely, Israel’s efforts to increase their “security” enable soldiers to engage in aggressive actions. Given the backlash against Israel for those kind of actions in rallies as well as the world press (consider, for instance, the world-wide reaction against Israel’s boarding the “Peace Flotilla” and killing some of its crew), the rules of the game that the Israelis were using actually played them into the hands of their opponents, strengthening their enemies’ narratives and reducing, paradoxically, their security. In fact, this example repeats itself throughout history: while a game-theory driven determination of the “rules of the game” in many scenarios may be a useful concept to describe positions and actions, it seldom helps real actors, in real time, to strategically change the core rules of their game.