(This is an archived page, from the Patterns of Power Edition 3 book. Current versions are at book contents).
Governance can only respond to people’s needs if everybody is prepared to negotiate. Both the government and the governed need to have some flexibility – yet there are people who refuse to compromise. The following sub-sections examine different kinds of refusal to negotiate:
· Religious absolutism (9.6.1);
· Political dissidents (9.6.2);
· Authoritarian intransigence (9.6.3).
This categorisation does not imply that intransigence is always one-sided. Although one side might accuse the other of refusing to negotiate, situations are often more complicated than that.