BREXIT GAMES: Negotiating in a Stetting of Incongruent Rationalities

The United Kingdom and the European Union negotiated the UK’s exit and the future mutual relationship for more than three years. Why did these negotiations not result in a mutually beneficial agreement? Projecting a game theoretical perspective on the two negotiation sides, this article argues that the different core assumptions about the nature of the negotiations explains the puzzle. While the UK acted in important steps as if in a chicken game, the EU side led negotiations internally and with the UK as a cooperative game. Both sides followed the respective scripts as prescriptive blueprint. The discrepancy between the two game-scripts set a context in which actual negotiations of core interests were impossible and even worsened over time due to endogenous reinforcing effects of the two game logics. First, the starting positions and red lines were defined on different underpinning logics. Second, and at least as relevantly, the messaging from the other negotiating side were interpreted according to the respective assumptions about the game being played. Third, messaging and commitments towards the home audiences increasingly restricted options to shift strategies. The paper presents a constructivist argument about the prescriptive effects of formal game theoretical calculus and strategies and examines the three theoretically expected effects (definition of red lines, interpretation of messaging from other side, internal messaging) using political positions, speeches and testimonials of key actors of the negotiation process. It concludes by projecting that also post-Brexit the underpinning setting of adversary games will make mutual understanding at least difficult and that a further escalation of misunderstanding and wrong-interpretation on both sides is likely to dominate UK-EU relations for some time to come.