o Time : July 27, Friday 12:00 ~ 2:00 p.m.

o Venue : 9705(The 7th floor seminar room)


Institutions and Korean BATNA in Public Disputes



Abstract

The challenge of getting disputants committed to the public dispute resolution process is the major obstacle to the use of consensus building methods. Without the commitments of parties to come to the table, there is no possibility of consensus building.

There has been a tendency to criticize parties of not being rational enough to come to negotiating tables in public disputes in South Korea. Compared with disputants in Western democracies who seem to be better at negotiating among them, Koreans have been not that sophisticated in their dealing with public disputes.

While the reality of involving parties in the process is very frequently more complex than a few simple hypothesis about the incentive to come to the negotiating table, their incentive is highly associated with their calculation of BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). I hypothesize that the calculation of BATNA is also influenced by institutions, such as legal frameworks, surrounding parties in specific public disputes.

This hypothesis-generating research can be the first step to better understand disputants, and distinct contexts in Korean public disputes so that it may suggest institutional reforms for more effective use of consensus building procedures in Korea.