6.8.4.2 Inclusive Negotiation
Negotiation can only be inclusive if there are safeguards to protect the interests of minorities:
- State law should not be allowed to conflict with religious law (5.4.3.2).
- Consultative governance (6.5.3) can ensure that all relevant views are taken into account.
- Particular attention should be paid to representation for ethnic groups in a pluralist society (6.7.4.6).
- Agreed human rights (6.3.7) are a specific safeguard to ensure that no-one’s interests are completely overridden.
Even with procedural safeguards, though, co-operative behaviour is necessary to achieve inclusiveness. It depends upon people respecting each other as equals, in contrast to an adversarial trial of strength. A purely majoritarian approach, by a ‘show of hands’, sometimes fails to find the best solution – which may require the majority to adapt slightly in order to accommodate the serious concerns of a minority group.
This is a current page, from the Patterns of Power Edition 3a book, © PatternsofPower.org, 2020. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition03/6842.htm