Bargaining Theory

Discipline: Political Science

A theory of politics as negotiation.

Politics - particularly the internal politics of government, legislatures, and parties - is usefully seen as a series of negotiations or bargains between groups with differing but not fundamentally incompatible interests.

Such a view discounts the likelihood of significant zero-sum situations, and is opposed to conflict theory.

Source:
Geoffrey Roberts and Alistair Edwards, A New Dictionary of Political Analysis (London, 1991)

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