Theoretical framework : Influence strategies, negotiation phases and the cultural context in crisis situations

"Early this morning, Russian commandoes have put a bloody end to the hostage tragedy in a theatre in Moscow. At the liberation action, certainly ninety hostages and fifty Chechnyan rebels were killed. Hundreds of people have been brought to hospitals. Dozens of them are in a bad way because they have inhaled gas that has been used at the liberation." (NOS news, 26 October 2002) The message above shows how much can be at stake in crisis situations. Afterwards, 129 hostages and 4l hostage-takers proved to have met their death after the tactical intervention of the Russian commandoes. In this situation, a tactical intervention has been chosen because the negotiations were deadlocked and the rebels began to execute the hostages. A crisis situation that is solved by means of mere negotiations obviously leads to many fewer victims. However, how do you negotiate with hostage-takers? How do you effectively influence them? Is one particular approach best, or are different approaches effective in different situations? In this chapter, we first briefly discuss what negotiation is and how it relates to crisis negotiations. Then we review the social influence literature and propose a framework for interpersonal influence behavior in crisis situations, i.e. the "Table of Ten". Furthermore, we will elaborate on the impact of the different negotiation phases and the cultural context. We conclude with several expectations about the research results