The role of third-party mediation and face and favor in executive–legislative relations and conflict

Abstract

This paper explores the role of third-party mediation in particular and the extent to which four conflict management strategies, i.e., third-party mediation, integration, distribution, and avoidance in general, exist and affect conflict resolution in the Taiwanese government's executive–legislative relations. Additionally, third-party mediation mianzi (face) and renqing (favor) in relation to Chinese culture are explored. Two independent samples were included in this study. The first included 235 legislative members and their assistants working within the legislative branch. The second included 301 legislative liaisons from the executive branch in Taiwan. The results indicated that four conflict strategies had been used in legislative–executive relations, namely integrative, distributive, non-confrontational, and third-party mediation, with mediation being the least frequently used. Third-party mediation, across two independent samples, was shown to have the strongest correlations with non-confrontation/avoidance versus integration and last distribution. Face and favor, then, were first associated with distribution, then third-party mediation, avoidance, and finally integration.

Keywords:

• conflict resolution
• conflict management strategy
• executive–legislative relations
• third-party mediation
• face and favor

Acknowledgements

This manuscript was developed based upon grants from the Ministry of Education, Republic of China [89-H-FA01-2-4-2 (91-2-5)] and the National Science Council [NSC88-2412-H-004-024]. The original version of this paper was presented to the Conference of Crossing Boundaries: Global Communication in the New Media Age, Taipei, July 7–8, 2006.

Notes

1. Blake and Mouton's (1964) Dual Concern Model, originally developed as a theory of individual differences in conflict strategy, implies that choice of conflict management method is determined by the strength of two independent variables, namely concern for personal outcomes and concern for others’ outcomes.

2. The trait approach in the literature of cross-cultural psychology explains cultural differences as ‘arising from the stable, general characteristics of negotiators, such as the degree to which their value-orientations are individualistic as opposed to collectivistic’ (Morris & Fu, 2001, p. 325). Thus, instead of using country as a benchmark to represent culture, this study adopts Yang's (2002) theory that two main types of cultural syndromes, i.e., collectivistic and individualistic cultures, characterize human relations in contemporary societies around the world. Yang (2002) terms the two psychological syndromes as psychological collectivism and individualism, and notes that the Chinese and Americans differ markedly on this dimension.

3. Face and favor was only measured for congressional liaisons; no relevant t-test statistics were reported.