Tommy Koh and the U.S.–Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multi-Front 'Negotiation Campaign'

Laurence A. Green; James K. Sebenius

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2014

Tommy Koh and the U.S.–Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multi-Front 'Negotiation Campaign'

by Laurence A. Green and James K. Sebenius

Abstract

Complex, multiparty negotiations are often analyzed as principals negotiating through agents, as two-level games (Putnam 1988), or in coalitional terms. The relatively new concept of a "multi-front negotiation campaign" (Sebenius 2010, Lax and Sebenius, 2012) offers an analytic approach that may enjoy descriptive and prescriptive advantages over more traditional approaches that focus on a specific negotiation as the unit of analysis. The efforts of Singapore Ambassador-At-Large Tommy Koh to negotiate the United States-Singapore Free Trade agreement serve as an extended case study of a complex, multiparty negotiation that illustrates and further elaborates the concept of a negotiation campaign.

Keywords: Negotiation; Trade; United States; Singapore;

Language: English

Format: Print

20 pages

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Citation:

Green, Laurence A., and James K. Sebenius. "Tommy Koh and the U.S.–Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multi-Front 'Negotiation Campaign'." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-053, December 2014.

In 1976, a growing crisis in Southern Africa drew the attention of United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. White Rhodesian leader Ian Smith's refusal to accede to black majority rule threatened to widen into a regional conflict involving apartheid South Africa and newly independent leftist African states. Kissinger and others feared that the region was on the brink of becoming a new battleground in the Cold War. In light of these developments Kissinger decided to intervene, seeking a negotiated solution that might bring about a peaceful end to minority rule. The account in this case carefully describes—but does not analyze nor draw lessons from—these challenging circumstances.

In 1976, United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger conducted a series of intricate, multiparty negotiations in Southern Africa to persuade white Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to accede to black majority rule. Conducted near the end of President Gerald Ford’s term in office and against substantial U.S. domestic opposition, Kissinger’s efforts culminated in Smith’s public announcement that he would accept majority rule within two years. This set the stage for the later Lancaster House negotiations that resulted in the actual transition to black majority rule. The account in this case carefully describes—but does not analyze nor draw lessons from—these challenging negotiations.

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Tommy Koh and the U.S.–Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multi-Front 'Negotiation Campaign'

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