Feeding the Right Wolf: A Niebuhrian Perspective on the Opportunities and Limits of Mindful Core Concerns Dispute Resolution

This Article offers a few observations regarding both the promise and the difficulties faced in using mindful core concerns dispute resolution. Part II focuses on the difficulties faced by mindful negotiators and mediators when confronted with disputants who are too adversarial, selfish, unrealistic, or unresponsive to overtures for interest-based bargaining--even after skilled attempts to neutralize whatever negative emotions may be fueling their counterproductive behavior. In making these assessments and suggestions, the Article relies significantly on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr. Appreciation of Niebuhr's insights can assist mindful negotiation by helping the negotiator to distinguish those situations amenable to the cooperative core concerns approach from those where negotiation may be futile, or more likely to succeed through more direct methods less solicitous of an uncooperative opposing party.

A Niebuhrian perspective counsels negotiators to deploy the Riskin approach where it is most likely to succeed, and to eschew or modify the approach when it is unlikely to be effective. Part III suggests some further directions for scholarship and practice applying the Riskin-Fisher-Shapiro-Ury fusion of interest-based bargaining, core concerns, and mindfulness suppressing the adverse impact of negative emotions.