Compromise and Trust

Compromise requires that parties to a disagreement make reciprocal concessions as measured on the basis of their pre-deliberative preferred option. In order to ensure the integrity both of the procedures of deliberative practices aiming for compromise, and of the agreement that emanates from these procedures, certain risks must be avoided. First, parties must prescind from engaging in strategic misstatement of their initial positions. Second, parties must be prepared to make reciprocal concessions with respect to often cherished values and normative commitments. For this to occur, they must be disposed to view these commitments as matters of preference rather than identity. Compromise becomes difficult when parties view concessions as matters of integrity and identity. For these two conditions to be satisfied, there must be a sufficient degree of trust between the parties. Trust is here construed as an affect disposing agents to view others as positively disposed toward the realization of these agents' interests. This poses a bootstrapping challenge for designers of deliberative spaces aiming at compromise. Successful compromise increases the "capital" of trust upon which deliberators can draw, but initial situations of compromise-seeking often occur in contexts in which that capital has been depleted. Unsuccessful attempts at compromise moreover increase the risks of strategic misstatement and of unwillingness to engage in reciprocal concessions. Drawing on arguments from Pettit's "The Cunning of Trust", the paper will end with suggestions as to how institutional designers can design deliberative spaces that take the affective, trust-based dimensions of compromise seriously.