Concessions for Concession’s Sake: Injustice, Indignation, and the Construction of Intractable Conflict in Israel–Palestine

• Published date: 01 October 2021
• Date: 01 October 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002721997543
• Author: Philippe Assouline,Robert Trager
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Concessions for

Concession’s Sake:

Injustice, Indignation,

and the Construction of

Intractable Conflict in

Israel–Palestine

Philippe Assouline

1

, and Robert Trager

1

Abstract

In intractable conflicts, what factors lead populations to accept negotiated out-

comes? To examine these issues, we conduct a survey experiment on a represen-

tative sample of the Jewish Israeli population and a companion experiment on a

representative sample of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. We find that

holding the negotiated settlement outcome constant, approval of the settlement is

strongly influenced by whether it is framed as a negotiating defeat for one side—if

and only if respondents are primed to be indignant—and that these effects are

strongly mediated by perceptions of the fairness of the settlement outcome. Moral

indignation produces a desire for concessions for concession’s sake. Such conflicts

over political framing violate assumptions of the rationalist literature on conflict

processes and suggest important new directions for conflict theorizing.

Keywords

conflict resolution, domestic politics, emotions, negotiation, public opinion

1

Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Robert Trager, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, 4289 Bunche Hall,

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472, USA.

Email: rtrager@ucla.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2021, Vol. 65(9) 1489-1520

ªThe Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002721997543

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The persistence of some conflicts is inconsi stent with rationalist models. Long-

running conflicts often seem to center on issues of control of material resources that

can be divided. The issues negotiated may not significantly influence the balance of

power. Over time, uncertainties about capabilities and levels of resolve seem to be

clarified. What factors, then, makes some disputes intractable, where other conflicts

over similar issues are resolved? We believe that understanding the nature of pub-

lics’ automatic, affective response to compromise is key to understanding the devel-

opment of political preferences over settlement outcomes.

In this article, we focus on the emotion of indignation—triggered by actual leader

rhetoric—and its influence on public willingness to compromise in the Palestinian-

Israeli conflict. We do so because indignation, despite seldom being the object of

research, is pervasive in confl ict situations and significantly influences publics’

judgments of what outcomes are fair as well as their willingness to compromise.

Indignation triggered by rhetoric or an adversary’s reprehensible past actions can

warp public appraisals and, accordingly, the dynamic of negotiations. In such cases,

material compromises by an opponent, even substantial ones, may not be sufficient

to garner public acceptance of political settlements. We demonstrate that rhetoric

that triggers public indignation makes populations prefer punitive impositions on

rivals, even in the absence of any material gains.

To do so, we conducted a survey experiment on a representative sample of the

Jewish-Israeli population. Holding the negotiated outcome constant, approval of the

peace settlement that we proposed is strongly influenced by whether it is framed as a

negotiating defeat for the Israeli or Palestinian side. This effect is conditional on

whether we induce indignation by recalling Palestinian elites celebrating violent

attacks on Israeli civilians. We show through mediation analysis that these effects

are likely the result of intuitive, moral responses rather than economic or security

judgments. Thus, elite rhetoric, diplomatic framing and the emotional response of

societal actors appear to play a principal role in the settlement of disputes.

Our study builds on existing research on emotions in international politics.

While scholars have focused on the role of framing and emotions in shaping public

opinion, and some studies look at the effect of anger on willingness to compromise,

few if any studies have looked at the role of indignation in particular—though it is

a core moral response that deeply affects political judgment (Sunstein 2008; Moll

et al. 2005). Nor have other studies measured how actual leader rhetoric influences

conflicts and bargaining ranges by triggering indignation in a population. We

therefore measure the extent to which indignation triggered by actual elite rhetoric

molds instinctive assessments of what constitutes fair outcomes and, as a result,

public willingness to compromise. It is important to note that, in this study, when

we make use of the terms fair or fairness, we do not intend the popular under-

standing of “fair” as meaning equitable or not marked by bias or favoritism.

Instead, we use the term fair as per the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition,

as fitting the expected normative order, that is, “conforming with the established

rules.”

1

1490 Journal of Conflict Resolution 65(9)

As a second step, we argue that, because political rhetoric and framing shape

automatic, collective emotional appraisal of settlements, conventional representa-

tions of conflicts are inappropriate. To illustrate, we also present the results of a

smaller companion experiment on a representative sample of Palestinians in the

West Bank and Gaza. Holding the negotiated settlement outcome constant in that

experiment, too, approval of the settlement is again strongly influenced by whether

it is framed as a negotiating defeat for the Israeli or the Palesti nian side. Our

findings contribute to the study of conflict by illustrating that actor preferences

are not characterized by risk aversion, as the rationalist literature assumes.

A mutually preferred, negotiated solution may not exist. Conflict also cannot be

modeled as a lottery over the extremes of a bargaining space because framings that

influence preferences ex ante are not available ex post. Thus, representations of

conflict processes wil l better fit political real ities when these assumpt ions are

relaxed.

We believe that any study of conflict should take into consideration the automatic

and non-rational psychological processes that shape perception and, accordingly,

preferences.

Political Preferences, Emotions, and Elite Rhetoric

Scholars have shown that public opinion is affected by foreign policy and also

shapes leader decisions regarding conflict (Shapiro 2011; Tomz et al. 2017; Foyle

1999). Our paper relies on this research and accordingly assumes that popular

opinion does affect leader preferences regarding conflict.

States act for security reasons, material gain, or due to some public understanding

of what constitutes fairness, among other motivations. Voting publics may view the

disputed territory as historically theirs or believe that unjust actions by their adver-

saries merit punishment (R. Stein 2015), thereby exacerbating conflict. Actors may

be convinced they are acting on strategic grounds even when their automatic affec-

tive response to events better explains their behavior (Haidt 2001). Conversely, self-

interest sometimes influences actors’ affective responses and understandings of

what constitutes a fair outcome (Messick and Sentis 1979; Dawes and Thaler

1988, 195; Rabin 1998, 16).

In this article, we show experimentally that public preferences derive in important

ways from automatic, affective responses to elite cues. Shifts in preferences occur as

a result not of strategic calculations but rather individuals’ intuitive assessments of

what constitutes an acceptable outcome, including but not exclusively for the group

with which they identify. Elite rhetoric, both domestic and foreign, heavily influ-

ences understandings of what is a fair outcome. In particular, rhetoric that triggers

indignation in a population produces a desire to impose punitive concessions on its

opponents, regardless of the material gains or lack thereof associated with those

concessions.

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