Abstract
Poland in 1988 was on the edge of economic, social and political collapse. The two antagonistic entities – the communist party and the government on one side and the Solidarity movement on the other - were each too weak to overcome the crisis by itself. Undertaking negotiations appeared to be the last chance to solve the crisis peacefully. There was a number of external circumstances and opportunities that supported undertaking the Talks, including Michail Gorbachev's perestroika in the East, Ronald Reagan's anti-communist policies in the West, the support of the Catholic Church and the support of the vast majority of Polish society. The whole Round Table story can be viewed as a transformation from a zero-sum game to a cooperative non zero-sum game with the solution close to a Pareto optimal solution. The processes included, among others: concentration on problems rather than people; building a mutual trust; creating the idea of the common good; and partitioning negotiations into many teams thereby creating a decision-making structure that was both hierarchical and flexible. After thirty years, both democracy and the rule of law are at stake again in Poland. Unfortunately, however, it does not seem that today’s socio-political situation is capable of fostering negotiation methods for solving the nation’s problems.
Highlights
There was a number of external circumstances and opportunities that supported undertaking the Talks, including Michail Gorbachev's perestroika in the East, Ronald Reagan's anti-communist policies in the West, the support of the Catholic Church and the support of the vast majority of Polish society
The whole Round Table story can be viewed as a transformation from a zero-sum game to a cooperative non zero-sum game with the solution close to a Pareto optimal solution
The processes included, among others: concentration on problems rather than people; building a mutual trust; creating the idea of the common good; and partitioning negotiations into many teams thereby creating a decision-making structure that was both hierarchical and flexible. Both democracy and the rule of law are at stake again in Poland
Summary
Motivation for problem solutions can begin with an understanding of the necessity of a solution. To state the situation in other, more technical words, neither party had a better BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (Brett, Pinkley, & Jackofsky 1996; Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011; Thompson, Wang, & Gunia, 2010) It was a stage of minimal motivation. I do not agree with these critics but, there is no way to check the validity of this interpretation For very many, both shortening the distance and perceiving interdependence situa‐ tions in terms of mixed motive rather than antagonistic (constant sum) games was a precondition for initiating any constructive dialogue between the involved players. The gradual change in the vision of the negotiations was the result of many of the factors of which shortening the distance was certainly important but not most important
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