Kenobi Eps. 1-2: “The fight is done. We lost”
Last Friday, the first two parts of the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series ran on Disney+. You can find Syfy’s excellent recap of both episodes here.
Even though the Clone Wars are over (“We lost”) and the Empire is settling into governance mode, conflict is everywhere. Let’s focus on how some of the characters are negotiating through these conflicts using leverage. (Warning: this post contains spoilers.)
Power and Leverage in Negotiation
Generally speaking, leverage is the ability to push for a particular outcome or direction in negotiation. When a negotiator has superior power or resources, for example, we often say that negotiator has more leverage in the negotiation, given that power and resources may make it easier for the negotiator to explore options, make concessions (or threats), walk away from the deal, and so on.
Leverage is not static and often fluctuates over the course of negotiation. Moreover, leverage may take different forms depending on the situation. Professor G. Richard Shell has written that there are three types of leverage: positive, negative, and normative.
Positive leverage is the ability to give the other side something they want. When the Fifth Brother offers the locals a reward for turning in Jedi, for example, he is using positive leverage.
Negative leverage, by contrast, is the ability (and willingness) to do something that the other side does not want. When the Third Sister, Reva, threatens to punish anyone who doesn’t help them (“Hands go first”), she is using negative leverage. Note that negative leverage is only effective to the extent that the threat is credible. That’s one reason Reva immediately chops off the hand of the first person who resists. She is demonstrating to the crowd her capacity for negative leverage so that she can improve her overall negotiating position.
Normative leverage is an appeal to shared norms or values, on the theory that reminding people of closely-held values will exert some persuasive appeal over them. When the Grand Inquisitor admonishes Reva in the saloon, for example, he says: “You are reckless.” This is not just a simple and pretty much accurate description of Reva. Rather, by making this statement, the Grand Inquisitor is attempting to influence Reva’s behavior (a kind of negotiation) by pointing out the disconnect between the way she is acting and the way inquisitors are supposed to act. Of course, in Reva’s case, this normative leverage is insufficient, so the Grand Inquisitor has to follow up with a hefty dose of negative leverage, threatening to release her of her duties if she doesn’t toe the line.
Are the Inquisitors Negotiators?
It may seem odd to think of the Inquisitors as negotiators in these scenes, but they actually are negotiating almost constantly with each other and with the local populations. The Inquisitors may have considerable resources but they are unable to achieve their goals without the cooperation of other people. They must negotiate with one another around the best way to move forward while also negotiating with others for information that will lead them to Jedi.
Even the Grand Inquisitor, who is clearly very powerful (e.g., he uses the Force to stop Reva from slicing through Nari with her lightsaber), does not have enough power to compel everyone do his bidding at all times. Thus he must negotiate with his team and others, and these negotiations draw on various forms of leverage throughout the first two episodes. Ultimately he fails at these negotiations, to put it mildly. Perhaps if he had used more positive leverage—say, by promising Reva some time to focus on finding Kenobi once they found Nari, for example—he might have lasted a little longer. (That’s assuming he’s actually dead. It was hard for me to believe he would go down so easily.)
More generally, an interesting (and enduring) question is whether the Fifth Brother’s mostly positive approach is better or worse than Reva’s mostly negative approach. Offering rewards may cultivate better relationships and encourage participation, but the rewards need to be sufficiently valuable to generate interest, which may lead to unacceptably high expenses for the Inquisitors. Threatening punishments seems easier and perhaps more direct, but the possible blowback from angry people (which may manifest as active resistance or passive disobedience) could irredeemably thwart the Inquisitors’ mission.
In conclusion: Leverage analysis is not the only way to think about negotiation dynamics, but it can be a useful way—as with the Inquisitors—to describe and theorize what people are doing, why they are doing it, and whether it is working.
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One other leverage- and conflict-related thought as we look forward to the next installment:
Why did Obi-Wan try to give Luke that toy? Perhaps it’s just an expression of affection. Or perhaps Obi-Wan’s attempting to exert some leverage over Owen in the present (around who is in charge of making decisions vis-à-vis Luke) and over Owen and Luke in the future (around whether he should be trained and/or allowed to leave the farm). When Owen confronts him about the toy, Obi-Wan responds: “There’s more to life than your farm. He needs to see it.”
Also consider that in this conversation with Owen, Obi-Wan says that “when the time comes, [Luke] must be trained,” even though Obi-Wan told Nari, just a day or two ago, that “the time of the Jedi is over.” Is Obi-Wan working through closely held contradictory notions? Or is he playing the long game and is actually still fighting the war? It will be interesting to watch this dynamic unfold over the course of the series. Maybe Obi-Wan is negotiating with himself.
Shell, G. Richard. (2006). Bargaining for advantage: Negotiation strategies for reasonable people. Penguin.
