Clinical Professor Robert Bordone ’97, a specialist in negotiation and dispute resolution and director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, was interviewed on public radio regarding the ongoing debt negotiations in Washington, D.C.
In the interview, which aired on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” on Tuesday, July 26, Bordone reacted to the dueling addresses to the nation by President Barack Obama ’91 and Speaker of the House John Boehner the previous evening. Bordone discussed the challenges involved in the current negotiations given the high stakes and the 24-hour news spotlight.
One of these challenges, he said, is educating constituencies on the implications of not reaching an agreement. Bordone worries that some members of the Tea Party in the House of Representatives may not believe that dire consequences will ensue if an agreement is not reached by the August 2 deadline.
“This is a really serious problem, and is not atypical in conflict situations where one side systematically underestimates the cost of no agreement for themselves and overestimates the damage that the other side will incur.”
Bordone also commented on the talks in a July 18, 2011 CNN Money article.
He is the author of more than 30 articles and case studies on topics of dispute resolution and negotiation, and he co-edited and co-wrote two chapters in “The Handbook of Dispute Resolution.” The handbook won the 2005 book award of the National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution and has since become one of the leading handbooks in the field.