GATT/WTO disputes, a process that demonstrates to the domestic political audience that
their issue is being given priority. Especially in cases with strong interest group pressure
on both sides, the WTO fora are more likely to be chosen. The binding commitments of
the trade round and enforcement mechanism of dispute settlement process address the fear
of noncompliance while the legitimacy of the multilateral rules makes it politically easier
to justify difficult concessions.
The Choice of Negotiation Forum
The choice of institutional venue for a negotiation often gets left out of negotiation studies.
Raiffa (1982) emphasizes the role of time, issues, and actors but not the institutional setting
of the negotiation, even though the rules of the game will influence these other contextual
variables. In their classic study, The Practical Negotiator, Zartman and Berman (1982,
9, 81) discuss three stages of negotiation: the diagnostic phase during the prenegotiation
period, a formula phase during the actual negotiation, and the details phase that works
out the agreement itself. They describe that the prenegotiation period involves efforts to
agree on the need to negotiate, to define the type of situation, and to reach definitions of
the problem. One of the most critical decisions made at this time – where to negotiate –
goes unmentioned.
Neither does the literature on two-level games fill the gap. As Putnam (1988) posits
in his two-level game analogy, each government must look over one shoulder at the de-
mands from strong lobbies at home and look forward to anticipate the reaction of its trade
partner. A growing literature explains how interest groups, domestic political institutions,
and bargaining strategies shape negotiation outcomes (Evans, Jacobson and Putnam, 1993;
Iida, 1993; Odell, 2000; Tarar, 2001). Yet these studies pay little attention to the role of
international institutions. Milner (1997, 70), for example, writes, “The international game
adopted does not have a well-defined institutional structure; politics on that level are as-
sumed to be anarchic, and international negotiations are generally conducted without a
constitutionally mandated sequence of moves.” In fact, leaders have a choice of whether
to negotiate in an unstructured environment or to choose a more institutionalized venue.
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Convention