Partnership Failure: Negotiation without addressing Asymmetric Power

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Two very different social causes have been sitting in my mind for some time. The War Against the Palestinian People and the oppressive nature of mental health systems.

Beyond the obvious reasons why they circulate in my mind* – the War in Gaza (including the Apartheid and the possible Genocide ) and the profound disappointment of failing Victorian mental health reforms – they circulate because I see a similar set of assumptions and underlying tensions that undergird both. They relate to power, incentives, dialogue and partnership. This says nothing to equivocate the harms in public mental health systems, with those in Gaza, but that I see a similar set of assumptions underpinning both.

It comes from lessons in power and international relations. International relations and human rights scholar Jack Snyder in Human Rights for Pragmatists draws on a wide range of civil rights, transitional and transnational justice movements – successes and failures – to highlight the need for a pragmatic approaches, grounded in adaptability and local politics, to drive human rights globally. Drawing on abolition in the US beginning with the non-Abolitionist Lincoln, the emergence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the New Deal, the use of amnesty processes following civil wars (e.g. Argentina’s removal of the military junta), and so on to argue that a social order is instantiated by a ‘social equilibrium’. Snyder describes a social equilibrium in the following terms:

a mutually reinforcing constellation of power, interests, institutions, and ideology. Breaking down the old equilibrium based on repression, favoritism, and deference to unaccountable authority cannot be achieved without a sustained assault on all these intertwined arrangements. Establishing a new social equilibrium based on equal rights and accountable government similarly requires the systematic construction of an interlocking structure of all these elements. Mixed social orders that combine contradictory elements of old and new—of practices of arbitrary favoritism and claims of equal rights—are the terrain in which efforts for social reform must operate during a long period of transition. In moving toward a new equilibrium that installs a central role for human rights, bargaining is necessary to create a social and institutional foundation for effective rules. Early in this process, bargaining cannot assume the efficacy of rights-based rules. Rather it must proceed from an objective assessment of the power and interests of key participants who can affect the outcome of the contest.

A framework that draws heavily on Marxist, liberal, human rights, sociological theorists, I think it is one that is incredibly important to how we think social change and human rights.

Systems, including unjust ones, regularly return to what we call homeostasis – the necessary balance within that system structure and process for it to survive; survive, even if that means the literal death of others, as in slavery, illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, or harmful mental health systems. [See the below interview with Professor Haines].

And while I agree with this dynamic of systems returning to their ordinary operation despite perturbations (disruptive events, environmental emergency, or media crisis), I prefer “social equilibrium.” Why? Because social equilibrium and social order as concepts remind us that they are not naturally occurring phenomena of the world (like our biological parasympathetic nervous system), but rather human-induced and socially constructed systems and dynamics, grounded in incentives and self-interest. Understanding that, in my view, gives us greater visibility on how to change such systems.

Frameworks such as the hugely important “Water of Systems Change” touch on these dynamics, by reminding us that the task is about “shifting the conditions that are holding the problem in place”. Kania’s Water of Systems Change work is truly transformative and reminds changemakers to examine our privilege in understanding the conditions that are holding problems in place.

This is important, and yet I think Snyder’s work takes us one step farther by making very clearly that the current social equilibrium that “holds the problem in place” is deeply grounded in a set of incentives that shape and align with powerful actors’ self-interest. The harm-causing systems maintain themselves (homeostasis or social equilibrium – whichever term) through a complex set of interlinked and mutually reinforcing set of incentives that make it in the interests of powerful actors to maintain the status quo.

According to Snyder, human rights advocacy has often succeeded or failed based on whether it has engaged with these elements in a sustained way. Snyder regularly sumarises this as:

‘Power and politics lead, justice follows.’

Shifting towards a rights-based order, according to Snyder requires the conscious and deliberate building of coalitions for change which continue to reshape the interests of a system in favour of a rights-based rather than patronage-based (illiberal/undemocratic) system of governance. This requires a systematic understanding of power, interests, and rights, and trying to bring the three into alignment. Social power is key to this, as he explains:

Power to and power over are also entwined in the realm of human rights. The effective instantiation of human rights depends on the power to organize collective action through the institutional infrastructure of rights-based governance, including a functioning legal system, a rule-following bureaucratic administration, the apparatus of democratic elections including political parties, and a free press. This creates a mighty apparatus that can wield power over not just petty criminals but also corrupt politicians, rogue generals, and predatory oligarchs. Once firmly established, human rights constitute a potent power to organize collective action, which is demonstrated by the comparative success of rights-based democracies in sustaining economic growth, generating technological innovation, maintaining internal social peace, avoiding wars against each other, and winning wars against major illiberal great powers.

This approach to human rights is far more comprehensive than common legalistic and a moralistic stance, with both often speculating and applying human rights in abstract realms of legal interpretation or in Kantian notions right/wrong. Both may be certain and righteous, but are unlikely to change the conditions we lament and create the outcomes we want.

Asymmetric relationships of power and human rights

When I look at Gaza, I don't have solutions. But I do see the failure of many well-meaning progressives or liberals (small L) in Australia highlighting the need for greater dialogue as the vehicle for change. This, conscious or not, keeps the social equilibrium in place by failing to address the power, incentives and interests that keep both the war and the apartheid system in place. The Labor party's approach to this has been a clear case in point (Dutton is just fire-starting).

Even those relative-centrists understand, from their leadership experience, that this approach fails. By no means a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions actor on the issue of Israel-Palestine, Obama reflected, after frustrating negotiations with Benjamin Netanyahu to secure what he believed a viable two-state solution, that asymmetric power undermined the process. When seeking to cajole Netanyahu’s government in 2009 to agree to a freeze in illegal settlements as a measure of good faith with Mahmood Abbas (Palestinian Authority Leader in the West Bank), Obama (A Promised Land ) reflected:

We knew that Netanyahu would probably resist the idea of a freeze. The settlers had become a meaningful political force, their movement well represented within Netanyahu’s coalition government. Moreover, he would complain that the good-faith gesture we’d be asking from the Palestinians in return—that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority take concrete steps to end incitements to violence inside the West Bank—was a great deal harder to measure. But given the asymmetry in power between Israel and the Palestinians—there wasn’t much, after all, that Abbas could give the Israelis that the Israelis couldn’t already take on their own—I thought it was reasonable to ask the stronger party to take a bigger first step in the direction of peace (my emphasis).

They rejected it out-of-hand, played games to mislead the American and Israeli publics on what was discussed, and put AIPAC to work to dissuade a Democratic from being so foolish to attempt this again in the future. Indeed, Netanyahu and other Zionist political leaders understand this better than many others. The creation of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territories are not just an expression of Zionist belief; they are, as American-Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi wrote in 2010 ‘creating facts on the ground’, which become themselves leverage points for further control in any negotiations over Occupied Palestinian Territories. Far right Zionists know that by bedding down their power and politics first, their justice (and the inverse Palestinian injustice) will follow.

To be clear, the notion that asymmetries undermine the chance for peaceful negotiations is not unique to Israel-Palestine; it is a feature of international relations and negotiations more generally. The same is well-known to be true in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine over Russia’s illegal incursions, war crimes and occupation of Ukrainian territories.

Eluding his own power and responsibility to force the Israeli’s to accepting that bigger first-step, Obama** rightfully identifies that real negotiation is often contingent on more equal power relations and interests/incentives, or measures to equalise power and change interests/incentives. If there is nothing that cannot be taken by force or by use of the existing system, it is unlikely that the less powerful actor will be able to draw meaningful concessions in a negotiation. Even genuine individual goodwill will fall prey or prove ineffective in response to a powerful cocktail of incentives and self-interest that favour liberation.

I raise that without drawing conclusions about how to “solve” the crisis engulfing Palestine (though please see VMIAC’s statement , that I support/was involved in), but also to link to what lessons this also provides for those working in mental health systems that cause harm.

“Partnership” without power and strategy: a dead-end

Partnership, co-design and other participatory approaches are becoming more common within mental health settings. This is part of a broader participatory turn within how we design, govern and operate public systems, including mental health systems. But as others rightfully acknowledge, it is incomplete and open to co-option.

We have seen this with the co-option of recovery, lived experience and other terms valued by those of us with lived experience. Important work has been done by groups such as Inside Out advising the Victorian Government on Moving from Engagement to Partnership . The report outlines, very clearly, the distinctions between Partnership and the lower rungs on Arnstein’s participation ladder, how partnership connects with the Victorian Royal Commission’s final report (noting of course, there was no Consumer Commissioner), and how to make the shift towards partnership. It speaks regularly, about power and the need to shift it.

And yet, as we have seen, this partnership has largely failed. In Victoria this is seen in reports suppressed, efforts to mislead the Victorian public on what the Royal Commission recommended , a lack of transparency from the watchdo g (tasked with enabling transparency, lol), and an ongoing failure to take seriously people’s concerns and feedback about the reform rollout.

This highlights something very clear to me: without an understanding of the nature of the social equilibrium that is in place, the interests that equilibrium serves, and the relative power of different actors, realising a rights-based system grounded in consumer perspective values will not be possible.

All people, including those of us with lived experience, are responsive to incentives. Those incentives look different based on our role, values, socioeconomic position, race, gender, relationships and more – but we are all responsive to them. The same is true of those leading the mental health reform agenda.

The current mental health system has an interlinking set of interests and incentives bound up on stigma and discrimination, biomedical hegemony and big pharma, professional interest groups. But if we left our analysis there, we would, metaphorically speaking, have never left the library to move into the ‘real world’ where further local politics and incentives take place. Political parties – Labor, Liberals, the Greens and other cross-benchers – all face different incentives that are shaped by the electoral cycle, what is on the political agenda, and which groups are more organised in responding to them. Bureaucrats, particularly those in senior roles, are subject to a politicised process that, if not explicit in its directions, implicitly indicates to them that their personal success will be shaped by their ability to secure political wins (that might not be public interest wins).

This set of internally contradictory incentives is not a ‘broken system’ as such, but a system that has a confusing set of primary purposes between biomedical treating of ‘mental illness’, ‘protecting’ the public, and both protecting and taking away the rights of people with lived experience’; that still holds most power in the hands of a few, where lived experience has failed to penetrate and influence the political cycle; and where lived experience has failed to structure and align the incentives for bureaucrats to act in ways that accord with the kind of system that we want.

It would be unfair and unwise to characterise the relationship between people with lived experience and the system and that of Israel-Palestine. Many political leaders are still, in theory, responsive to the interests of people with lived experience – there’s an inverse relationship in Israel between the interests of the Palestinian people and those of Israeli politicians. Self-interest is a powerful force that we have not acknowledged or tapped into. The mental health system, for all of its injustices, has people who (with the need for greater reflection) wish to be of assistance and service, but remain clouded by their self-images and unacknowledged privilege and professional power. Bureaucrats – a reminder that I was one too – have a general intent to do well. But a shared truth can be drawn from these two examples: local politics matters, and true partnership requires equals. Or, as Snyder states ‘Power and politics lead, justice follows.’

I say all of this to say that we should, as is VMIAC’s new partnership's policy, seek to collaborate where we can, compete where we should, and criticise where we must. That in my view, is a pragmatic, thoughtful and coordinated way in which we can engage with the system in a way that maintains a clear focus on a system that is grounded in human rights. Done well, this creates a social equilibrium where rights-based practice (by clinicians, bureaucrats and Ministers) and advocacy is not ‘brave’ or the outlier, but ‘common sense’ because it implicitly is in the self-interest of key leaders.

That is personally why I focus on institutions - a crucial component of the social equilibrium - such as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, previously the Chief Psychiatrist (grace for the new Chief Psychiatrist), the need for a more active Victoria Legal Aid on strategic advocacy and others. We are not seeing that in the places that it matters. My visible advocacy in the media is incomplete (it only proves effective where people stand and act in coalition), unsustainable (it is weeks of unpaid advocacy, as this blog is), and a symptom of that moral and strategic vacuum (more powerful, resourced and authoritative actors should collectively be filling this space).

I don't think true partnership is possible if we expect actors to simply give power away. Instead, we need to collaborate wherever we can, compete on the markplace of ideas where we should, and criticise people directly where we must, in a way that aligns interests, incentives and power towards a common-sense rights-based system. That is long, intentional and emotionally laborious work. But it doesn't require more resources than we currently have; it requires a perspective shift in how we do our work and engage with the system.

If we do that, I think real change, over time, will come.

* For what it’s worth, my first degree was in International Relations and my job during that degree was as a research assistant and course tutor in numerous courses at the School of Government and International Relations. Then I had a breakdown (abbreviated) and now I’m in mental health!

** Please do not take this as an endorsement of Obama’s foreign policy. That too is beyond the time and my expertise.