The Power Problem

Abstract

Several years ago in France, at an international conference of university presidents, a colleague and I gave a talk on the importance of teaching negotiation as an academic subject. We argued, among other things, that a mastery of negotiation techniques would help Third World officials and executives improve their dealings with industrialized countries and multinational corporations. The head of one of India’s largest universities dismissed our argument with a wave of his hand, saying, “A negotiation between the weak and the strong is a dialogue between the lamb and the lion—the lamb always gets eaten.”