Parliamentary negotiations in Denmark

Abstract

Negotiation theory tells us how we should negotiate if we want to negotiate wisely. We learn how to make the cake larger and how to get as big a bite as possible. Negotiations are key in politics. Even so, not many scientific studies apply the negotiation theory framework to legislative negotiations, including Danish legislative negotiations. On the other hand, there is a literature that describes actual legislative negotiations in Denmark. To what extent do the negotiations literature and the described real-life negotiations match each other? Danish politicians can learn from negotiation theory to varying degrees, and negotiation theory can learn from Danish legislative negotiations. The dominant role of the minister in parliamentary negotiations substantially reduces the complexity problems normally associated with multiparty negotiations.