Bargaining in Institutionalized Settings: The Case of Turkish Reforms.

By analyzing two cases of bargaining situations in institutionalized settings, which derive from Turkey's reform process in two sensitive issue areas (civil-military relations and cultural rights), this study assesses the explanatory powers of competing models of bargaining: rational, normative and discursive/argumentative. The bargaining outcomes in these cases were puzzling because despite the existence of strongly pro-status quo veto players, the bargaining processes led to a new status quo in both issues. This study shows that veto players simply failed to prevent a shift to a new status quo because such an action would do substantial damage to their ideational concerns (normative entrapment). The rational model remains under-socialized, while the discursive model is over-socialized in analyzing these bargaining situations. Although the normative model sheds more light on these puzzling outcomes, a synthesis between normative and rational models would provide us with much better insight. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]