The role of negotiations and organizational behavior in the implementation of El Salvador's peace accords

This dissertation focuses on the Salvadorean peace accords signed between the government and the former guerrilla turned political party Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front; FMLN). The end of the Salvadorean civil war era ended in 1992 as peace accords were signed between the government and FMLN leaders. The signing of the peace accords took time to complete and much dialogue required both parties to meet to negotiate and settle on timelines and agenda setting. This study explores the peace accords from the perspective of the soft, hard, and principled negotiation method as described by Fisher and Ury (1981) and by applying Allison and Zelikow's (1999) Rational Actor Model (RAM) (Model I) and the Governmental Politics Model (Model III). It studies how the peace negotiations, as seen through the lenses of all three methods of negotiations and models I and III, influenced its implementation. All three negotiation methods and models I and III explain how the peace accord negotiations influenced its implementation. Specifically, it addresses the following research questions: (1) How did the negotiations influence its implementation? (2) How did intra-group politics influence the language of the Salvadorean peace accords? (3) How did intra-group disagreements generate soft-outcomes inhibiting implementation? (4) What has been the impact of language ambiguities encountered in the accords' provisions during their implementation?;The research conducted indicates the negotiations heavily influenced the peace accords' implementation. Both negotiating parties first had to conduct intra-group negotiations before negotiating between themselves. The dynamics of intra-group negotiations impacted the accords' negotiations, wording, and direction. There were two negotiating parties to the accords, as a consequence, there were ambiguities found in the wording of the accords. This is normal for an event of this magnitude since both parties had personal, political, and organizational interests to secure. By inserting ambiguous language, both parties were able to manipulate the accords according to each party's needs and interests.;A pattern that seems very pronounced is that regardless of the negotiating approach to the accords, both parties ended negotiating in the long run in order to avoid intervention from any outside party. During the negotiations, both negotiating groups approached the negotiating table with the hard approach only to later succumb to negotiations which were carefully worded, crafted according to each party's interests, and manipulable for future face saving. Language ambiguities caused the some issues and themes in the Salvadorean peace accords to remain unmentioned. As a result of this, certain provisions in the peace accords remained unnegotiated.