The unifying negotiation framework: A model of policy discourse

Abstract

The Unifying Negotiation Framework is an integrative model of policy negotiation. It flows out of the discourse tradition in public policy and political theory. It conceptualizes decision processes as discourses that occur at three levels (micro, meso, and macro), and are affected by six different factors (culture, institutions, agency, incentives, cognition, and actor orientation and experience). Initial applications of the Framework show that it has value in training, ex ante evaluation and design, and ex post evaluation and analysis. It has the additional benefit of synthesizing the disparate literatures on participatory processes. Because the Framework does not lead to specific predictions, it is more accurately referred to as an organizing meta-narrative than a theory.